The Petronet LNG terminal in Kochi will go on stream only by December and with a production pared by nearly one-third.
While the original plan was to go into commercial operations by September, it would be delayed by a couple of months, and the company would initially produce 1.5 million tonnes of gas, for which it already has listed buyers like GAIL, BPCL and IOC, said the Petronet LNG managing director and CEO, A.K. Balyan. All the 1.5 million tonnes of gas sourced from the Australian firm Gorgon had been sold out.
The delay was on account of the doubling of the capacity to 5 million tonne midway. “A lot of safety requirements had to be considered, and the process would take some time, since we had initially set the production at 1.5 million tonne,” he said.
For additional gas to meet full capacity, which would be based on agreements with downstream industries, LNG was looking at sourcing 2.5 million tonne of gas from Russian firm Gazprom.
It was also in discussions with Qatar and looking at the US market as also Mozambique and Angola.
Regarding the proposed power project, Balyan said that a detailed project plan was presented to the government along with the memorandum of understanding (MoU) for it more than a month ago.
The state had referred the matter to KSEB, he said, and expected the state to get back soon.
It was proposed to be a 50:50 venture with the state, with the latter signing power purchase agreements.
The cost would come to around Rs 6 a unit. The 1,200 MW project would need an investment of Rs 3,500-4,000 crore.