Artefact · interactive
Four prices for the same molecule.
Indian natural gas doesn't have one price. It has four, applied on the same calendar day, differing by where the gas was produced and when the field started producing. Understanding the split is the skeleton key to every upstream PSU's quarterly result and every city-gas retail tariff.
APM ceiling — legacy domestic fields
Floor USD 4 / ceiling USD 6.5 per MMBtu
Gas from ONGC and OIL's nomination fields (pre-NELP acreage — Mumbai High, KG onshore, western offshore) is priced under the Administered Pricing Mechanism with a floor and a ceiling.
Formula: 10% of the Indian Crude Basket monthly average, subject to USD 4 floor and USD 6.5 ceiling per MMBtu. Revised every six months (1 April, 1 October).
Who gets it first. 100% of APM gas goes to the priority sector — City Gas Distribution for CNG transport + piped domestic PNG. This is the gas that determines your Delhi / Mumbai CNG price.
HPHT ceiling — deep water, hard fields
Ceiling ~USD 9.96 per MMBtu
Market-linked — new wells, HELP, OALP
No ceiling · traded freely
Imported LNG — the swing supplier
USD 10-18 per MMBtu, globally volatile
The politics in one line. A rise in crude pushes APM and HPHT ceilings up (formula-linked) while simultaneously raising imported LNG — industrial consumers squeeze, CNG prices get considered for a hike, and MoPNG gets asked to raise the APM allocation to CGD to cushion retail. This is the triangulation you can see playing out every time Brent moves 20% in a quarter.