 "In pics: All you need to know about India's first natural gas exchange")
Indian Gas Exchange (IGX), the country's first natural gas exchange, started its operations from Monday.
The fully-automated trading platform, set up by the Indian Energy Exchange (IEX), allow buyers as well as sellers to trade for imported natural gas in both spot market and in the forward market, across three hubs —Dahej and Hazira in Gujarat, and Kakinada in Andhra Pradesh.
Usually, regular contracts for natural gas supply are as long as six months to a year. IGX allows much shorter contracts from delivery on the next day to up to a month.
To date, the government decides the price of domestically produced natural gas and therefore it can not be traded on the gas exchange.
The ministry of petroleum and natural gas is likely to seek the approval of the Union Cabinet for the unbundling of GAIL.