LNG

The decline in Indian liquefied natural gas imports slowed to 1.8 percent from the previous month’s 24 percent fall as cargoes for West Asia were expensive when competing with Europe and South America and as Indian domestic gas demand remained flat.

Indian liquefied natural gas imports last month dropped by more than 17 percent amid a 40 percent surge in cargo prices year-on-year, while domestic natural gas production more than offset the fall in imports.

India posted a drop of more than 14 percent in liquefied natural gas imports last month amid higher prices and as the economy still lagged because of low industrial demand and the ongoing impacts of Covid-19.

McDermott International, the US energy engineering company, has completed the Krishna Godavari Basin D6 block's Cluster field subsea gas development offshore the East Coast of India to meet rising domestic gas demand along with LNG imports.

McDermott said it achieved pre-commissioning and ready for start-up status for Indian company Reliance Industries, whose partner in the joint venture is BP of the UK.

BP and Reliance had announced in mid-December 2020 that first gas had been produced from the R Cluster field project.

The UK and Indian partners are developing three deepwater gas projects in block KG D6, called the R Cluster, Satellites Cluster and MJ fields.

Together these fields are expected to meet 15 percent of India’s gas demand by 2023.

“The safe and successful completion of Reliance's KG-D6 R Cluster project is a testament to McDermott's subsea experience in the Bay of Bengal,” said Ian Prescott, McDermott's Senior Vice President, Asia Pacific.

“Pre-commissioning and ready for start-up was achieved despite difficult circumstances - two severe cyclones during the first campaign and, in the second, navigating the challenging conditions of Cobvid-19,” added Prescott.

“It is an outstanding achievement and demonstrates McDermott's commitment to reliable execution,” he stated.

For the KG-D6 R Cluster project, McDermott built a yard facility in India for the fabrication of risers, jumpers and marine logistics support.

The Houston-based company explained that the project comprised two offshore campaigns.

During the first campaign, the “DLV 2000” vessel completed McDermott's first piggy-back pipelay in S-lay mode (18-inch plus a four-inch) in 4,265 feet (1,300 metres) water depth.

It also included the installation of the first ever ultra-deepwater structure, weighing 343 tons, for the “DLV 2000”.

Several six-inch pipelines, PLETs and manifolds were installed in water depths up to 6,447 feet (1,965 meters). In addition, McDermott installed India's longest dual riser.

The second campaign included installation of manifolds, manifold piles, flowlines, PLETs (S-mode and J-mode), in-line structures, jumpers and umbilicals in ultra-deepwater depths, together with major brownfield modifications to Reliance's control and riser platform.

Successful flowline and umbilical installation were completed in 6,561 feet (over 2,000 meters) water depth using three McDermott vessels: “DLV 2000”, “Lay Vessel 108” and “North Ocean 102”.

These Reliance-BP projects will utilise the existing hub infrastructure in KG D6 block with BP holding 33.33 percent and Reliance as the operator of KG D6 owning 66.67 percent.

The R Cluster was the first of the three projects to come onstream.

The field is located about 60 kilometres from the existing KG D6 Control & Riser Platform (CRP) off the Kakinada coast and comprises a subsea production system tied back to CRP via a subsea pipeline.

The R Cluster field is expected to reach plateau gas production of about 12.9 million standard cubic metres per day in 2021.

Indian liquefied natural gas imports jumped by more than 67 percent last month to 40 cargoes as import capacity gradually increases to handle the shipments, mainly from Qatar, Australia, the US and Africa.

Indian liquefied natural gas imports increased for a third month of the current fiscal year as the nation received more than 30 cargoes, with the main suppliers being the West African nations of Nigeria and Angola as well as Qatar.

Indian LNG imports jumped last month by over 17 percent, led by shipments from Qatar and Nigeria as volumes are also set to increase from the US to meet rising demand from regasification infrastructure being developed for the first time on the East Coast.