**2.1 Proved natural gas reserves**

At the end of 2020, India's proven natural gas reserves stood at 1.32 trillion cubic meters (TCM) compared to just 0.731 TCM in 2000, 80.5% growth in 20 years. Despite India's rising natural gas reserves, its share is just 0.7% of the global reserves. Asia-Pacific, the world's most populous region holds 8.8% of the global reserves. In this region, China leads the table with a 4.5% share followed by Australia, India, Indonesia, and others. Global natural gas resources are quite unevenly distributed. Russia, Iran, and Qatar hold 19.9%, 17.1%, and 13.1% of the global reserves, respectively. These three countries collectively controlled 50% of the global natural gas reserves of 188 TCM in 2020 (**Figure 1**).
