Page 10 - AsianOil Week 16 2022

AsianOil SOUTH ASIA AsianOil

Petronet may consider fourth

LNG import terminal in India

INVESTMENT INDIA’S Petronet LNG may consider building a with demand growing too, LNG imports are
fourth LNG import terminal in India in order to anticipated to have to rise to meet the remainder.
meet rising demand. Petronet had previously explored the possibil-
Petronet’s CEO, A K Singh, told the Press ity of building an LNG terminal at Gangavaram
Trust of India last week that the company expects in Andhra Pradesh but abandoned that plan
Indian gas demand to keep growing. He added in 2015-16 on the grounds that there was not
that the company could look at developing a enough demand in the region – on India’s east
fourth regasification terminal in the country, but coast – to justify it. However, Indian Oil Corp.
that these were only “preliminary thoughts”, with (IOC) subsequently brought the Ennore LNG
no further details to be provided at this stage. terminal into service on the east coast in 2019
Petronet operates a 17.5mn tonne per year and Adani Group and TotalEnergies are bring-
LNG import facility at Dahej in Gujarat and ing the Dhamra LNG terminal online this year.
another 5mn tpy terminal at Kochi in Kerala. Petronet itself has changed its mind on demand
It is also planning to develop a floating LNG on the east coast given that it is now developing
(FLNG) import terminal at Gopalpur in Odi- the Gopalpur FLNG project.
sha in the next three years at a cost of INR16bn It is unknown whether the Gangavaram plan
($210mn). could now be revived, or whether the company
Singh’s comments come as the Indian govern- will begin pursuing an altogether new project in
ment targets raising the share of natural gas in a different region.
the country’s energy mix to 15% by 2030 from Meanwhile, Petronet is also intending to
6.7% currently. Domestic gas production meets increase the capacity of its Dahej LNG ter-
almost half of current consumption, and while minal to 22.5mn tpy in response to growing
efforts are underway to boost domestic output, gas demand.™

SOUTHEAST ASIA

Indonesia’s first-quarter

production below target

PERFORMANCE INDONESIA’S oil and gas production came in though, data from Indonesia’s statistics bureau
below target during the first quarter of 2022, it released earlier this week showed that the coun-
emerged this week. Upstream regulator SKK try’s exports and imports had hit record highs in
Migas’ chairman, Dwi Soetjipto, attributed this March thanks to rising commodity prices.
to some operations being hit by unplanned out- Last month, exports from Indonesia were
ages, as well as to the lingering impact of the worth $26.5bn, up 44.36% year on year, while
coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic in com- imports rose 30.85% to $22.0bn. This gave the
ments to media on April 22. country a $4.5bn surplus in March – the largest
SKK Migas data show that Indonesia pro- since October and exceeding the $2.9bn surplus
duced 611,700 barrels per day of oil between that had been forecast in a Reuters poll.
January and March this year, falling short of a Some of Indonesia’s top export products
target of 703,000 bpd. Gas production stood at include coal, natural gas, palm oil, tin and
5.3bn cubic feet (150.7mn cubic metres) per day, nickel. Prices for these had already been rising
below the targeted 5.8 bcf (164.3 mcm) per day. as demand recovered following the initial waves
According to Dwi, production started off low of the pandemic and they increased further still
in 2022 owing to the pandemic and was then following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in late
further constrained by unplanned shutdowns February.
at Pertamina’s Rokan block, ExxonMobil’s Cepu Against this backdrop, state-owned Pertam-
block and BP’s Tangguh gas plant. The regula- ina is reportedly aiming to boost its production
tor is set to resume maintenance audits that had to more than 1mn barrels of oil equivalent per
been suspended over past two years owing to day this year. This would mark an increase
pandemic-related restrictions. from 897,000 boepd produced by the company
Despite production falling short of targets, in 2021.™

P10 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 16 22•April•2022