October 21, 2024 [Oil Price]- Indian state-owned Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL) aims to commission its new LNG import terminal, India’s sixth, in December and January, and is holding talks with potential suppliers of LNG for the long term, sources told Reuters on Friday.
HPCL, a subsidiary of the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), has built an LNG import terminal at Chhara in Gujarat State on India’s west coast. The terminal is designed for regasification capacity of 5 million metric tons per annum (mmtpa), with an option to expand the capacity to 10 mmtpa.
HPCL is now looking for a cargo to commission the new facility in December or January, after failing to do so in April, due to bad weather.
The firm wants to use the three-month window of fair weather after the monsoon season ends, according to Reuters’s sources. This window begins in November.
HPCL has also held talks with potential suppliers and has seen “a good response” to an expression of interest it has issued seeking term LNG supply for 15 years, one of the Reuters sources sad.
The Indian state firm wants to buy one LNG cargo per month starting in late 2026 or early 2027.
India plans to ramp up LNG imports and the use of natural gas as a fuel cleaner than coal and needed in many industrial processes.
For Indian firms, securing LNG supply is crucial as consumption of natural gas in industrial activities is set to soar.
India’s industry expansion and rising oil refining to meet higher fuel demand are set to drive a tripling of the country’s natural gas consumption by 2050, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) said earlier this year.
Per the EIA forecasts, India’s gas demand – buoyed by oil refining and other industrial production – is expected to grow at an annual rate of 4.4% by 2050, more than twice the 2.0% annual growth rate of gas consumption in China, the next-fastest-growing country.
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