One of the world’s largest energy consumers and importers, India, is weighing the possibility of keeping strategic reserves of imported coal and natural gas in order to fend off future supply and price shocks, according to a senior government official. Although it is a major coal producer, India is currently grappling with a coal shortage and surging import prices of both coal and liquefied natural gas (LNG) amid a global energy crunch from Europe to Asia. “So let us start thinking and discussing about keeping a strategic reserve of gas and imported coal, so that economies are able to tide over these supply shocks for about a month or so,” India’s power secretary Alok Kumar, said at the South Asia Power Summit, as carried by Reuters . Unless India has a strategy to keep reserves, future high prices “will make energy security very challenging,” Kumar said. The idea of […]