Hindustan Petroleum May Pick Up Stake in Petronet's Gangavaram Terminal

Indian state-owned Hindustan Petroleum Corp. Ltd (HPCL) may pick up 8% stake in Petronet LNG’s Gangavaram LNG terminal in the state of Andhra Pradesh.

“HPCL has evinced interest in taking stake in the terminal as they have a huge requirement of gas at Visakhapatnam refinery,” Press Trust of India quoted a top Petronet official as saying.

Andhra Pradesh government too has evinced interest and is likely to get 5% stake, leaving Petronet with 69% shareholding.

The Gangavaram project received all approvals of the state government only last month, a good one-and-half-year behind schedule, and Petronet is now looking to build an import facility by 2018, Press Trust reported.

This will be Petronet’s first import facility on the east coast. It already has a 10 million tonnes a year terminal at Dahej in Gujarat and a 5 million tonnes unit at Kochi in Kerala. Petronet is expanding Dahej to 15 million tonnes by end of 2016 and plans to add another 2.5 million tonnes capacity.