More LNG tankers to land at Dahej from April 1

Petronet-LNG is confident it will be ready to commission an additional 2.5m t/y re-gasification facility built by Toyo Engineering at DAHEJ by April 1 - raising the LNG terminal's nameplate capacity from 15m to 17.5m t/y.

"Increasing DAHEJ capacity means it can receive more LNG tankers and send out more R-LNG," a Petronet-LNG source tells us. Up to 40 more cargoes a year will now be able to land at DAHEJ under the Rs415cr ($58m) capacity expansion approved by company directors in November 2014.

"This means the number of 'slots' (cargo delivery slots) for off-takers (GAIL, IndianOil, GSPC, Bharat Petroleum and Torrent) will increase." Petronet-LNG believes R-LNG demand will rise steadily following conclusion of the CGD-IX round last year and the just-concluded CGD-X round where 50 areas are expected to be awarded by mid-March.

Petronet-LNG is simultaneously preparing to begin work to further raise capacity to 20m t/y in the final stage of its Phase-IIIB expansion. At last month’s Vibrant Gujarat summit inaugurated by Narendra Modi on January 18, Petronet-LNG signed a MoU with the Gujarat Maritime Board promising a further increase in DAHEJ capacity to 20m t/y over the next three years at an estimated Rs2100cr ($292m) cost.

In this final stage Petronet-LNG's focus will be to set up a third jetty and seventh storage tank to remedy overcapacity problems that plagued the terminal in 2018 when R-LNG send-out rates fluctuated wildly.