In conversation with Paras Savla, Chairman and Managing Director, Deep Industries Limited

There is a clear policy push towards making India a 'Gas Based Economy' and we would be benefitting out of it, opines Paras Savla, Chairman and Managing Director, Deep Industries Limited.

What is your outlook for the Oil & Gas industry in India?  

India's demand for energy is set to outpace domestic supply, providing the largest contribution (30 per cent) to global energy demand growth by 2035. All four major energy-consuming sectors – industry, household, transport, and agriculture – will see a rise in demand. As the energy mix evolves, the type of infrastructure India requires will change (including storage solutions and the integration of distributed and renewable resources). Prime Minister Modi’s relaxation on policies and plan to set up 16,000 km on new gas pipeline network has also allowed the businesses to scale up.  

The ambitious plan to spend USD 60 billion in creating gas infrastructure till 2024, including pipelines, liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals and city gas distribution (CGD) networks will boost the macroeconomic framework of the country and provide ease of doing business. With the potential of the energy sector in India and to support India’s growth story along with the PM’s Atmanirbhar vision, there is a need for better infrastructure to make this vision and ambitions a reality. 

There is a huge demand for oil and gas across the country. The present share of gas in the energy basket of the country is 6.2 per cent and the target is to take it to15 per cent by 2030. The CGD Policy will speed up gas infrastructure activities in the states. The distribution networks would enable the supply of cleaner cooking fuel (like PNG) to households, industrial and commercial units as well as transportation fuel (like CNG) to vehicles. There is a clear policy push towards making India a Gas Based Economy and we would be benefitting out of it.  

What are your internal growth targets?   

The recent CGD policy announcements are expected to benefit our business activities especially related to gas processing. Quicker CGD network expansion is bringing in a decent demand for CNG booster compressors to be installed at CGD stations. Our subsidiary RAAS Equipment is manufacturing these CNG Booster compressors and this kind of CGD Network expansion creates a huge opportunity for us to grow much faster. Overall, we are very much upbeat about business growth going forward.    

What are the growth levers you are banking on?  

The obvious answer is natural gas which is coming hugely with industrial demand or retail consumption. As you see CNG has already started becoming the new preference among the consumers in a big way due to it being relatively cheaper. India has abundant reserves of natural gas and this again makes it a strong contender as fuel among industrial and retail consumers. The growth levers for Deep will be in two folds. Firstly, the increased push for the usage of natural gas as fuel will directly expand our gas processing services verticals namely Natural Gas Compression and Natural gas Dehydration both being very critical before the Natural Gas gets put to any kind of usage.  

Secondly, as many as 23000 booster CNG Compression stations and 6600 online CNG Compression stations are expected to come up during the next 7-8 years as a result of huge CGD Network Expansion. This is making up a very strong demand scenario for Booster compressor packages which our subsidiary RAAS Equipment manufactures.      

What is the product (services) portfolio mix for Deep Industries?  

• Deep Industries Limited is a one-stop service solution provider for the energy sector. The group is into this for more than 30 years now and has invested significant time and effort in building up strong infrastructure and information system capabilities and has been an ‘Energy Infrastructure Equipment Solution Provider’ for every need of the Energy Sector including Oil and Gas field operations   
• Deep Industries Limited pioneered natural gas compression services on a charter hire basis in India and are the first company to provide natural gas dehydration services.  
• Deep Industries is also the first Indian company to provide Integrated Project Management Services offering a pool of services under a single contract whereby we are focusing on end-to-end services starting from the drilling of well till completion of well, using in-house expertise as well as third party services.   
• Our Services Portfolio consists of Natural Gas Compression services, Natural Gas Dehydration services, Workover Rig services, Drilling Rig services and Integrated Project Management Services with a pool of Drilling, Cementing, Mudlogging and Hydrofracturing Services.   
• Our comprehensive services portfolio is well supported by skilled manpower and a wide range of equipment catering to upstream and midstream segments of the sector while maintaining safety standards and quality of services as an integral part of our core philosophy.  
• We own a comprehensive range of equipment under Gas Processing wherein we have a fleet of Gas Compressors with total capacities at 87,000 HP and Gas Dehydration Units with total capacities at 4.35 MMSCMD.  
• Under Rigs, we own a fleet of 11 rigs wherein we have eight workover rigs ranging from 30 tons to 100 tons and three 1000 HP drilling rigs.  
• Recently we have forayed into manufacturing of CNG booster compressor through our subsidiary RAAS Equipment Private Limited.