Indian liquefied natural gas imports dropped for a fourth month and by more than 10 percent as the costs of shipments rose at a slower pace and the debut of a seventh terminal was delayed by higher prices while offshore domestic gas pipeline supplies continued to increase on the East Coast.
LNG imports for the month of January amounted to 1.78 million tonnes, or about 26 cargoes, compared with 1.99MT, or 29 cargoes, in January 2021, a drop of 10.6 percent, according to preliminary monthly data from the Indian Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas.
Shipments to India’s operating network of six regasification terminals, mostly concentrated on the West Coast, for the first 10 months of the current fiscal year from April through January declined by 3.2 percent to 19.82MT versus 20.48MT for the same period of the previous fiscal year.
India's fiscal-year LNG import volumes are still on track to again be lower than in the previous fiscal year.
Cargo deliveries had amounted to 1.93MT in December 2021 versus 2.03MT in December 2020, a decline of 4.9 percent.
The Ministry data also showed that India in January 2022 paid around $900 million, or around 6,718 crore Indian rupees, for LNG cargoes compared with $800M in January 2021.
The shipments in the 10-month period from April to January cost $9.9 billion, 73,908 crore rupees, versus $6.2Bln in the same period of the previous fiscal year.
LNG deliveries to Indian terminals come mainly from Qatar, which provides over one-third of volumes, as well as West Africa, the US, Asian nations, Australia and the spot market.
Domestic gas
Increasing domestic natural gas production has more than offset the fall in LNG imports, though the volumes are mostly in different regions than those required near LNG terminals for regular customers.
