GAIL Eyes LNG Trading from Singapore

India’s GAIL intends to trade 1 million mt/year of US LNG from its Singapore office and import 5 million mt/year into India, Platts quoted GAIL Chairman B.C. Tripathi as saying.

The United States Energy Department has conditionally authorized Dominion Cove Point LNG to export domestically produced liquefied natural gas (LNG) to countries that do not have a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the United States from the Cove Point LNG Terminal in Calvert County, Maryland.

The capacity of the facility is fully subscribed to buyer in Japan and India. Pacific Summit Energy, LLC, a U.S. affiliate of Japanese trading company Sumitomo Corp., and GAIL Global (USA) LNG LLC, a U.S. affiliate of GAIL (India) Ltd., each have contracted for half of the marketed capacity.

"With this approval, we have 6 million mt of [US] LNG available," Tripathi said in an exclusive interview to Platts on the sidelines of the Asian Ministerial Energy Roundtable Meeting in Seoul.

"Our ultimate plan is to bring this gas to India. Some volumes will flow to the west coast, some to the east coast. In the short term, we will be selling 1 million mt of this out of our Singapore office, and 5 million mt will be going to the Indian market," he added.

This year the Indian firm has entered into a $60-billion deal with two US-based companies for bringing in close to six million tonnes of LNG every year over a 20-year period beginning 2016-17.

GAIL has contracted 3.5 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) of LNG from US based Cheniere Energy Partners for 20 years, company’s chairman and managing director BC Tripathi told the newspaper. The second 2.3-mtpa LNG deal has been signed with Dominion Energy from the latter's LNG plant in the US.