NGS: A Roundup of the Year 2022
The year 2022 has been a year like no other. Economic, environmental and geopolitical turmoil have defined the past 12 months. The Omicron variants were a highlight in the year 2022, as the virus continues to mutate. The world witnessed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February leading to global crises for both food and energy as well as displacing millions of people. Inflation was unusually high in countries around the world in 2022. Climate change led to many record-breaking temperatures around the world – from runways melting to devastating wildfires. During the summer of 2022, Europe witnessed the worst drought in 500 years. Flooding in India’s neighbouring country from June to August killed more than 1,391 people and caused huge financial losses emerging out of damage to houses, crops and key infrastructure. In China, factories were forced to shut down in August due to decreased water levels around the Yangtze River Basin which curbed electricity generation at hydropower plants.
The world population exceeded 8 billion on 15 November 2022.
The year gone by was full of uncertainty for the global natural gas sector. Indian gas sector was also no exception. However, despite the crisis, the Indian gas sector was more or less successfully able to tide over 2022. The feature story of this issue of GSR presents an overview of the turns and twists in the Indian gas sector which showed resistance to all the hindering factors impacting the economy and continued on the growth path.
During the year 2022, we, at Natural Gas Society continued the efforts towards achieving our objectives with the guidance, support and cooperation from our constituent members. While the periodicals like Quarterly GSR, Fortnightly Snapshots and the Daily News Update were regularly published on our website, several other initiatives were taken by organising technical events, industry meets, knowledge partnerships in technical events organised by others, participation in various important events, establishing industry-academia interface, membership drive, etc.
With the objective of bringing the technical fraternity together to deliberate and address the issues and challenges in the Operations & Maintenance activities, NGS organised O&M Conference on February 23 & 24, 2022 in virtual mode. It provided a platform for the exchange of new ideas and the best practices in the domain of O&M. While the keynote address was delivered by Shri S P Manglani, CEO, Adani Total gas Ltd. (ATGL), the conference was inaugurated by Shri Manoj Jain, CMD, GAIL (India) Ltd. We received a very encouraging response from the industry members and had speakers & delegates from M/s ATGL, PIL, IGL, MGL, Think Gas Ltd., MNGL, Torrent Gas Ltd., Secure Meters, etc.
To address the need for more intensive communication/interaction amongst the senior executives/professionals of the organisations working in the natural Gas/CGD sector for discussing/sharing their experience/concerns with other Member companies, NGS initiated efforts to create a common platform wherein the industry leaders can meet and deliberate on relevant issues, on a regular basis. Accordingly, a one-day “NG Summit” – (the first such Summit) was organised on August 5, 2022, in New Delhi. The event was attended by 29 leaders/professionals from various NGS member organisations and other invitees. These included the leaders and representatives from ATGL, BGL, CUGL, GAIL, IGL, MGL, MNGL, PIL, Think Gas and Secure Meters. The Summit included very participative and interactive deliberations on the issues related to NG/CGD business. These discussions broadly pertained to areas like Policy, Technical, Commercial, Innovation and Sustainability.
Yet another initiative proposed by NGS is that of 
(GPS) for addressing the need for enhancing optimisation in O&M activities and for experience sharing. It is envisaged that representatives of various member entities will visit the installations of the other companies for sharing of experiences and best practices. This proposition has been well received.
To utilise the available experienced manpower, i.e the superannuated employees from Hydrocarbon/NG/CGD sectors like IOCL, BPCL, HPCL, OIL, GAIL, MGL, IGL, Adani Total Gas Ltd., Torrent Gas, etc., NGS plans to create a database or a Talent Pool of experienced professionals make their services available to the companies who need specific expert services. Various companies have been contacted by NGS and the response has been received from some of them; more to follow.
Aiming at collaboration for knowledge & experience sharing on a broader horizon, NGS engaged with other organisations as a Knowledge Partner/Associate. ED, NGS and other Senior Consultants were invited to Advisory Board/Speaker/Session Moderator with ISGF in India Smart Utility Week (ISUW 2022) (March 2022), with FICCI in LEADS 2022 (Leadership, Excellence, Adaptability, Diversity & Sustainability) (Sept 2022), with Messe Frankfurt in LNG India Summit (7th Edition, Nov 2022), with ITex in PipeTech 2022 (Nov 2022), etc. It is proposed to continue with such efforts in alignment with the objectives of NGS for the benefit of its members.
NGS has the privilege of technical expertise sharing with bodies like the Bureau of Indian standards (BIS). Shri V C Chittoda, Sr. Consultant, NGS was unanimously appointed as Convener of the panel for Thermal Mass Flow Meters Panel (BIS-PGD-26). He is also representing as a member of the committee for review of BIS standards for CNG High-Pressure Cylinder (MED 16) and Metering of Natural Gas (PGD 26). He is also invited to various relevant technical events as session chair/moderator etc. from time to time. Other senior consultants of NGS, Shri A N Pandey and Shri Amarendra Kumar also have had similar active participation in the technical events of relevance.
Efforts are also being made for Industry-Academia collaboration for mutual benefit. In this direction, we are happy to share that Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Petroleum Technology (RGIPT), Jais has been inducted as an Associate Member of NGS. Other similar institutions like UPES, Dehradun, Indian Institute of Petroleum & Energy (IIPE), Visakhapatnam, etc. have also been invited for membership of NGS.
Though the framework of rules of NGS has a provision for Individual Membership, somehow, it remained untapped hitherto. I am happy to share that now we have made a beginning in the direction of broadening the membership base and Mr. Milan Donga – a Chemical Engineer & entrepreneur has been enrolled as the first individual member of NGS. Many other individuals have expressed interest in becoming members.
In so far as our publications are concerned, they are being well received by the readers. It gives a nice feeling and a sense of satisfaction when some important person holding a high position asks: “I am unable to trace a copy of July 2022 issue of GSR which contained useful material. Will you please send it to me again?”. However, we consider it as a motivation for continuing with the efforts for doing better; aiming at continual improvement. As always, we look forward to your valuable feedback and suggestions, in this regard.
I, on behalf of NGS and my behalf, extend warm wishes and greetings to you and your family for a very happy, healthy, safe, and prosperous New Year 2023.
D V Shastry
