H-Energy to Start Work on East India Terminal: Report
Mumbai-based H-Energy will start work on the proposed LNG receiving terminal in the eastern Indian state of West Bengal by mid-2019, CEO Darshan Hiranandani said during an event in Kolkata January 9, newspaper Businessline reported the same day.
The rupees 37bn ($530mn) project will supply regasified LNG to West Bengal as well as to neighbouring Bangladesh. The first phase of the project comprises a regasification terminal at Kukrahati in the Purba Medinipur district of West Bengal, at an estimated cost of rupees 15bn. In the second phase, which will cost rupees 22bn, H-Energy will build a pipeline from Haldia in West Bengal to the India-Bangladesh border, and a smaller city gate station on the outskirts of Kolkata for supply of city gas, the newspaper reported.
According to Hiranandani, the construction work is expected to begin June-July this year and should be completed over the next 18 months.
“We have decided on a model that will have transloading at Paradip [in Odisha state], and from there the gas will be brought via smaller vessels to the re-gasification terminal at Kukrahati for faster execution,” he told reporters.
“We have also got court clearance to go ahead with the gas supply line to Bangladesh. Construction work will begin shortly.”
Initial capacity of the terminal will be 3 million metric tons/year which can be expanded to 5mn mt/yr depending on the demand, the newspaper said.
H-Energy currently has a 2mn mt/yr long-term supply contract with Bangladesh, Businessline reported. Supply to Bangladesh will start at 0.5mn mt/yr, and later scaled up. The remaining gas will be used for city gas projects in West Bengal.
In February last year, H-Energy signed an LNG term agreement with Malaysia’s state-owned company Petronas.
In addition to the West Bengal terminal, the company is also developing a terminal on the west coast. The Jaigarh floating terminal is expected to start full commercial operations later this year, Hiranandani said. The terminal was supposed to come online last year.
The FSRU GDF Suez Cape Ann arrived at Jaigarh Port in the western Indian state of Maharashtra last May. FSRU GDF Suez Cape Ann is owned by Hoegh LNG but on charter to France's Engie which had sub-chartered it to China's Cnooc for the last two winters for use at the Chinese port of Tianjin.
The 60-km pipeline — built at a cost of rupees 4bn and expected to be operational May onwards — connects the 4mn mt/yr terminal at the port of Jaigarh to the national gas grid at Dabhol.