Petronet to Raise LNG Imports to 17.5M tons

Petronet LNG Ltd. plans to raise its base capacity for liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports from 2.5 million today to 17.5 million tons at two terminals by 2014. Petronet, which built India's first LNG import terminal at Dahej in Gujarat, was created by the Indian government to import the cleaner fuel for the energy-hungry economy. It is building another LNG terminal, India's third, at Kochi in southern India with a capacity of 2.5 million tons. Dasgupta said the new terminal, along with an initial expansion of Dahej to 10 million tons, would be complete by 2009 or 2010. Petronet, which started operations at Dahej in 2004, imported 2.5 million tons of LNG in the year to March 2005 and has tied up about 5 million tons of imports this year. The company was actively looking at building another LNG terminal in Mangalore in the southern state of Karnataka for one of its shareholders, Oil and Natural Gas Corp. Ltd.