Marubeni lands fifth LNG cargo for GAIL
Japanese trader Marubeni landed a 138,530-cubic metre LNG cargo for GAIL on October 29, the fifth under a deal signed in October 2010.
PETROWATCH learns the Marubeni cargo arrived at Petronet-LNG’s Dahej LNG terminal in Gujarat aboard 140,624-cubic metre capacity LNG tanker Galicia Spirit, on her first trip to India. Flying the Spanish flag, Spirit is owned and operated by Vancouver-based Teekay Corporation and usually ferries LNG between Egypt and Spain.
Marubeni sourced this LNG cargo for GAIL from Spain’s Union Fenosa, which in turn sourced the cargo from its Damietta liquefaction facility near Port Said in north Egypt. Spirit was loaded at Damietta on October 16 and left for Dahej in the afternoon of October 17.
After unloading at Dahej, Spirit left late in the afternoon on October 30. This year GAIL has imported a LNG cargo nearly every month at Dahej with Spirit the tenth to arrive.
Besides the five Marubeni cargoes, GAIL sourced two LNG cargoes from Qatar’s RasGas, two more from Russia’s Gazprom and another from Algeria’s Sonatrach. Last October, GAIL signed a 24-cargo deal with Marubeni for 500,000-tonnes of LNG over three years.
Petronet-LNG however is India’s largest importer of spot LNG with 22 cargoes landed this year. Its latest 135,327-cubic metre LNG cargo auspiciously landed at Dahej on October 26, when Hindus celebrated ‘festival of lights’ Diwali with fireworks displays across India.
This cargo arrived aboard the 138,000-cubic metre LNG tanker Castillo De Villalba, flying the Spanish flag, on its third trip to India this year. Spanish company Gas Natural sourced the cargo for Petronet-LNG from Nigeria LNG’s Bonny Island liquefaction facility near Port Harcourt in Nigeria.
Villalba was loaded on October 4 and set sail for Dahej the next day. Built in 2003, the LNG tanker regularly brings cargoes to India.
