Petronet to set up Rs4,500 crore terminal at Gangavaram in Andhra Pradesh

State-owned Petronet LNG Ltd (PLL) will set up a Rs4,500 crore ($900 million) terminal at Gangavaram in Andhra Pradesh with a capacity of five million tonnes, Petroleum Secretary G C Chaturvedi today told reporters.

The decision was taken by the PLL board after preliminary studies was carried out and the management today gave the go-ahead for carrying out a detailed feasibility study of the proposed terminal.

According Ashok Kumar Balyan, CEO of PLL, the company has appointed France's Tracta Bel as the consultant to undertake the study for the proposed greenfield terminal.

PLL, in which state-owned GAIL, Oil & Natural Gas Corp (ONGC), Indian Oil and Bharat Petroleum each hold a 12.5-per cent stake, operates a 10-million metric tonnes per annum terminal (MMTPA) at Dahej in Gujarat, which is planned to be expanded to 15 million metric tonnes.

This capacity addition at a cost of around $280 million, is expected to be commissioned by September 2013, PLL, India's largest liquefied natural gas importer, procured 7.5 MMTPA from Qatar currently on a long-term basis, while it was sourcing 1.5 MMTPA from Gas Natural (of Spain). The company is in talks with Qatar and Australia for long term for LNG sourcing contracts.

In August 2009, PLL had signed a multi-billion dollar agreement to secure LNG for its Kochi terminal with two Australian subsidiaries of oil giant ExxonMobil from its Gorgon LNG project in Australia.