The energy supply shocks have re-surfaced the debate around coal gasification in fuel import dependent countries. The process converts coal into a mixture of carbon monoxide, hydrogen, carbon dioxide, and methane, commonly known as Syngas, and can be used for power generation, fuels, and chemical production. After looking at China’s successful adoption of coal gasification, India is also considering accelerating the domestic adoption of the technology for meeting the country’s long-term energy security needs. To accelerate adoption, the government launched a ₹8,500 crore viability gap funding (VGF) scheme in January 2024 to support coal and lignite gasification projects across public and private sectors. Some early industrial applications are already underway with Jindal Steel’s plant in Angul, Odisha, using coal-based syngas for direct reduced iron (DRI) production, offering a potential substitute for natural gas in steelmaking. However, besides the high capital intensity of coal gasification plants, India also lacks indigenous technologies and supply chains for large-scale adoption. These capabilities are required to meet the specific requirements of India’s high-ash coal and localised supply chains could reduce the costs of projects. Some progress in this direction has been Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited’s (BHEL) development of pressurised fluidised bed gasification (PFBG) technology suited to high-ash (>40%) Indian coal, while Thermax has demonstrated methanol production from such coal without pre-treatment. These innovations are critical, given the limitations of imported technologies. Most imported technologies are suitable for coal with ash contents below 25%. With significant upfront investments required, the technology will be reliant on policy support until the establishment of market linkages that can help producers become commercially feasible. Some analysis suggests that Syngas produced from coal could be up to 20 times cheaper than imported natural gas, and it can be highly competitive if the technology achieves economies of scale. End-use sectors such as fertilisers and petrochemicals that are reliant on imported feedstocks as well as hard to abate sectors like steel and cement could benefit from coal gasification, resulting in cleaner use of the fuel if coupled with carbon capture. China is a dominant global producer of several key inputs for fertilisers and chemicals, utilising syngas for their production. Specifically, the country uses syngas to produce Urea (China accounts for 40% of the global production), Methanol (70% of it produced using syngas), and Ammonia (90% produced using syngas) which is an essential input for DAP. While the technology is promising, and can contribute to India’s energy security in the long term, its costs need to be assessed against the import bills that can be reduced by using Syngas, and the momentum needs to be sustained beyond energy crises for coal gasification to be widely adopted and reach commercial viability.