Petronet's Second Kochi LNG Terminal Expected Next year

Petronet LNG would commission its second import terminal at Kochi in Kerala by the first quarter of 2013 calendar year and expand the capcity of its Dahej facility to 15 million tonne by 2015. The company would also build a third terminal for importing gas in ships and at Gangavaram in Andhra Pradesh.

Times of India said that the information was provided by CEO A K Balyan on Friday when the company announced its results for July-September period. "We operated (the 10 million tonne a year) Dahej import terminal at 106% capacity during the quarter," Balyan said.

He said the Kochi terminal will operate only to less than a fifth of its 5 million tons a year capacity as the off-take infrastructure is not yet ready, the newspaper reported.

Times of India also added that GAIL is laying pipelines connecting the Kochi terminal to consumers in two phases - the first phase connecting four consumers like Kochi refinery and FACT Tranvancore would be completed by December-end. Upon this, the Kochi LNG terminal will be commissioned but it will operate at only 0.5-1 million tons capacity for the first year due to limitation of gas off-take.