Page 8 - AsianOil Week 34

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BCPL to invest in Indian FSRU
FINANCE & INVESTMENT
INDIA’S Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) has unveiled plans to build an o shore LNG import terminal at Krishnapatnam in Andhra Pradesh. BPCL’s chairman, D Rajkumar, said on August 26 that his company would invest INR15-17bn ($210-238mn) in building the oating storage and regasi cation unit (FSRU).
According to Rajkumar, the FSRU will ini- tially have a capacity of 1mn tonnes per year, which can be scaled up to 3-5mn tpy further down the line. e company anticipates com- missioning the facility by 2022.
BPCL will hold a 74% stake in the project, with Petronet LNG owning the remaining 26% interest, Rajkumar said.
e move appears to suggest that BPCL – India’s second-largest state-owned re ning and fuel marketing rm – anticipates the use of nat- ural gas as cleaner-burning fuels becoming more popular. Prior to announcing its LNG invest- ment, BPCL has also started participating in city gas distribution (CGD).
Rajkumar said BPCL was transferring its gas business to a new subsidiary – Bharat Gas Resources Ltd (BGRL). e company already has CGD licences for 37 geographical areas, including through joint ventures with other players.
BGRL has also entered into a long-term sales and purchase agreement (SPA) to buy 1mn tpy of LNG from Mozambique over a period of 15 years, Rajkumar noted. e gas will come from
the Anadarko Petroleum-led Mozambique LNG project, on which a nal investment decision (FID) was recently taken. e project is antici- pated to enter service in 2024. A BPCL unit owns a 10% stake in Mozambique LNG.
BPCL’s FSRU plan comes as other companies also move forward with the construction of LNG import terminals – though some proposals have also been scrapped. Adani Group is building a 5mn tpy LNG import facility at Dhamra in Odi- sha. Meanwhile, Petronet had previously signed a rm and binding term sheet for developing an onshore LNG terminal at Gangavaram Port in Andhra Pradesh alongside Gangavaram Port Ltd (GPL), but subsequently abandoned the plan. State-owned GAIL (India) had also been intend- ing to develop a facility at Paradip, in Odisha, but also scrapped the proposal.™
SOUTHEAST ASIA
Pertamina doubles H1 profit
PERFORMANCE
INDONESIA’S state-owned Pertamina saw its rst-half net pro T soar 112% year on year to US$660mn on the back of lower oil prices and reduced crude imports, nance director Pahala Mansury told reporters on August 26.
Mansury added that the surge in pro ts came despite a 3% y/y slide in revenues to $25.55bn. The executive attributed the profit jump to falling costs on the back of a 6% decline in the average Indonesian crude price (ICP) to $63 per barrel. e company has increased its purchases of local crude oil while reducing its imports.
Jakarta introduced a rule in 2018 requiring contractors to sell almost all of their output to the state major, exempting existing long-term export agreements from the requirements. e government wanted to improve Pertam- ina’s access to local oil production in a bid to reduce imports, and the move has succeeded,
with the state oil company noting earlier in the month that it had reduced oil imports by 35% y/y in the rst half to 220,000 barrels per day. Pertamina imported an average of 339,000 bpd in 2018.
e company’s oil production, meanwhile, climbed to 413,000 bpd in January-June, up from 385,000 bpd in the same period of 2018.
Fuel sales climbed to 34.1mn kilolitres from 33.9mn kl a year earlier, while non-fuel product sales rose to 8.3mn kl from 7.9mn kl. e com- pletion of Pertamina’s $392mn Blue Sky project in Cilacap helped li the company’s oil product production, Mansury said.
e company announced in April that it had suspended jet fuel imports and Mansury noted that high stockpiles meant the company could begin to export excess supply. He said: “In terms of volume, it’s not too big. We need to lower our
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w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m Week 34 28•August•2019