Page 9 - AsianOil Week 12 2023

AsianOil PIPELINES & TRANSPORT AsianOil

India looks for LNG cargoes to open

new East Coast terminal

INDIA INDIAN Oil Corporation (IOC), the state-run failed to find any takers and there are no current
entity behind the initiation and construction of reports of success on the part of the most recent
If secured on time, IOC the nation’s only East coast LNG terminal, is on tender.
is hoping the cargoes the lookout for eight LNG cargoes to help kick- The facility at Dharmra is currently operated
will reach the terminal start operations at the Dharmra site in the state under licence by Adani Total, a joint French-In-
between mid-June of of Odisha. dian firm with 50% owned by the French oil and
this year and the end of If secured on time, IOC is hoping the cargoes gas giant TotalEnergies.
May, 2024. will reach the terminal between mid-June of this The Adani side of the deal, however, is still
year and the end of May, 2024. suffering, as the trading empire is being raked
A month ago reports from India quoting the over the coals almost daily regarding alleged
operating firm, Adani Total’s chief executive Sat- financial irregularities related to the group’s
inder Pal Singh, said: “we are still in discussions, stock crash.
we have not finalised supply plans, but we are, in It is understood that deals have already been
the first year, expecting close to 2.2mn tonnes.” won by Adani Total, though, with the largest a
Singh’s comments came at a time it had just deal on regasification dating back to 2018, with
been confirmed that total LNG imports had IOC and set to last for a period of 20 years.
dropped across India in 2022, for the second This deal is on a take-or-pay basis, according
straight year. to reports in India, and stands at 3mn tonnes
This was largely seen as a result of the gov- per year (tpy) of LNG by way of the East Coast
ernment in New Delhi moving to increase coal route.
powered energy production because of rising Gas supplied this way would, it was
LNG prices on global markets. announced at the time, make its way to IOC
“The demand is always there at the right refineries in the city of Paradeep, Odisha as
price. I think things are starting to look better, well as to Haldia in the state of West Bengal, just
but it is a volatile market” Singh added, acknowl- south of power-hungry Kolkata, the nation’s
edging the issues his company faces in securing fourth-largest city.
the LNG needed to operate Dharmra. Another deal for 1.5mn tonnes has also been
Reports do say that the terminal will be fully agreed with GAIL India (GAIL), also a public
up and running, with commercial operations sector agency under India’s Ministry of Petro-
starting between a month and six weeks after leum and Natural Gas.
delivery of the first cargo. The new facility at Dharmra made head-
Issuing a tender that ended on Wednesday, lines across India when construction finished,
March 22 for the cargoes was merely the first primarily as a result of the frequent floods and
step though in what may yet prove an arduous cyclones that affect the area, often leaving many
journey for IOC to bring the Dharmra terminal dead and wrecking large areas.
online, according to local Indian energy analysts. A 7m high tide killed over 10,000 in 1999,
An earlier IOC tender that ended on March with Cyclone Yaas just two years ago also causing
14 for an LNG cargo to be delivered by April 23 over $2.8bn in damage and leaving 20 dead. ™

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