Indian liquefied natural gas imports declined for a fifth month though at a much slower rate while year-on-year LNG costs soared and were partially offset by more domestic pipeline gas supplies coming ashore from the Bay of Bengal.
LNG imports for the month of February amounted to 1.85 million tonnes, the equivalent of 27 cargoes, a decline of 0.5 percent from the 1.86MT delivered in February 2021, according to preliminary monthly data from the Indian Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas.
Deliveries in the previous month of January declined by 10.6 percent to 1.78MT compared with 1.99MT in January 2021.
Shipments to India’s operating network of six regasification terminals, mostly concentrated on the West Coast, for the first 11 months of the current fiscal year from April through February declined by 3.0 percent to 21.67MT versus 22.34MT 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.
The Ministry data also showed that India in February 2022 paid around $1 billion, or 7,6123 crore Indian rupees, for LNG cargoes compared with $900M in February 2021.
The shipments in the 11-month period from April to February cost $10.9 billion, or 82,974 crore rupees, versus $7.0Bln 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, Russia and the spot market.
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.
Domestic production of natural gas surged by 12.8 percent in February to 2.602 billion cubic metres versus 2.307 Bcm in the prior-year month.
The cumulative gross production of natural gas jumped by 19.8 percent in the April-to-February fiscal year to 31.137 Bcm from 25.987 Bcm in the previous year.
The revived Krishna-Godavari Basin of Eastern India has seen production jump and will rise further in the future from development projects involving the Indian group Reliance Industries and UK major BP as well as Oil and Natural Gas Corp. of India.
The latest Ministry data also gave average capacity utilization rates for the nation’s operating LNG terminals.
Terminal throughput
The largest Indian terminal at Dahej, located north of Mumbai and operated by Petronet LNG, has capacity of 17.5 MTPA and the utilisation rate since April 2021 to the end of January 2022 was 89.1 percent compared with 90.0 percent in the previous month.
At the Hazira facility, operated by Shell India, the fiscal year utilisation rate declined to 52.6 percent from 57.2 percent for 5.2 MTPA, while the West Coast terminal at Mundra saw usage edge lower to 19.6 percent from 19.9 percent previously for its 5 MTPA of capacity.
