Malaysia and Qatar possible pre-2009 LNG sources
Petronet-LNG has identified Petronas and RasGas as supply sources of LNG pre-2009.
Says a source: Petronas will have 1.8m t/y extra from around June 2006 when they finish de-bottlenecking their production capacity in Malaysia. Petronas produces 23.2m t/y LNG from four trains in Malaysia.
After de-bottlenecking this can go up to 25m t/y. Freight charges from Malaysia to Dahej are likely to be 55 cents per mmbtu and about 45 cents to Kochi.
Freight from Qatar to India is much less: 26 cents per mmbtu. Qatar is said to be adding one natural gas liquefaction train almost every year.
Their fourth train will come on stream this November, the fifth train by mid-2007, the sixth train by September 2008 and the seventh train by September 2009. Petronet-LNG hopes each of these trains can squeeze out some spare capacity.
Other than Petronas and RasGas, nobody east of Suez can supply for another four to five years.