Page 16 - GLNG Week 28 2022

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India prepares to

launch first FSRU

PROJECTS INDIA is expected to launch its first floating Progress towards start-up of the first FSRU,
storage and regasification unit (FSRU) for the which will be operated by H-Energy, is now
import of LNG in the second half of the year. being seen, with arrival in India of the Hoegh
The facility, which will be sited at the port of Giant FSRU in March. With a storage capacity of
Jaigarh, around 170 km south of Mumbai, will up to 170,000 cubic metres of LNG, the unit has
help India to add up to 11mn tonnes per year a regasification capacity of 6mn tpy.
(tpy) of regasification capacity, according to the Speaking when the agreement was
International Gas Union (IGU). announced prior to the unit shipping, the pres-
“In India, two floating storage and regasifi- ident and CEO of Hoegh, Sveinung Stohle, said
cation unit-based terminals at Jaigarh and Jafra- that a roadmap with H-Energy also included the
bad are currently under development and are joint development of the downstream small-
expected to start operations in 2022, after pan- scale LNG market in the region.
demic and weather-related delays,” the IGU said Stohle went on to add that with the potential
in its recent World LNG 2022 report. for growth in India over the next few years, the
Over the past decade, India has shown shipping of further FSRUs when the Indian mar-
“exceptionally strong growth”, the same report ket is ready was a possibility.
said. This has led to an overall increase in the When processed, regasified LNG will be sent
country’s natural gas import capacity by more from the port at Jaigarh along a 56-km gas pipe-
than 160%. line connected to India’s national grid.
LNG imports will prove all the more impor- The facility at the port will also have the
tant in the years ahead, with India this week fore- capacity to reload other LNG tankers to permit
cast by the United Nations to become the world’s transport to other Indian – or possibly overseas
most populous country by the end of 2023, with – terminals.
a population in excess of 1.4bn people. Vessel-to-LNG truck capability is also under-
Currently, however, there are just six func- stood to be an add-on currently being negotiated
tioning LNG import terminals across the at the site.
country. The second FSRU will be located in at Jafra-
No new capacity was added in 2021, although bad, in India’s north-western state of Gujarat,
this was in large part owing to lockdowns and and will have a slightly smaller capacity. It was
limits on the movement of people related to the initially projected to have been operational over
coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. two years ago.
As such, India was still limited to its current Having finally overcome pandemic-re-
regasification capacity of 39.5mn tpy, a figure lated delays in addition to direct hits from two
unchanged from the end of 2020. At the end of cyclones in the past year, the site has now been
April 2022, a further 30mn tpy of capacity was upgraded to function as an all-weather facility.
reported to be under construction, according to When operational, the Jafrabad site, operated
the IGU. by domestic energy firm Swan Energy, will add
The IGU added that India’s first FSRU-based 5mn tpy of LNG regasification capacity.
terminals, which were initially due to be com- The Jafrabad FSRU site will deploy a Korean
missioned in early 2021, were now likely to start built Vasant 1 unit with a capacity of 180,000
up in the second half of 2022. cubic metres.™

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