RUSSIAN LNG FOR INDIA

REUTERS - India's state-owned gas supplier and developer GAIL Ltd plans to buy 0.5 million tonnes or eight cargoes of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Russia's Gazprom in 2018/19, its chairman and managing director B.C. Tripathi said.

"The cargoes will start coming from May," Tripathi told Reuters on Thursday at the International Energy Forum.

GAIL renegotiated the terms of a long-term 2.5 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) liquefied natural gas (LNG) purchase deal with Russia's Gazprom in January.

This was the third such renegotiation by India with LNG suppliers to make the imported fuel more affordable, using its position as one of the world's biggest energy consumers to strike better bargains for its companies.

India has also renegotiated long-term LNG deals with Qatar's RasGas and Exxon Mobil Corp as spot prices declined substantially amid a supply glut that turned trading of the seaborne gas into a buyers' market.

GAIL is planning to get as much as 5 million tonnes of LNG from the United States as well, equivalent to about 80 cargoes throughout the fiscal year, Tripathi said.

He said half of the U.S. LNG cargoes could be swapped for shipments from other suppliers, depending on available terms.

"Swapping is a continuous process and we are doing it regularly. We have swapped three so far in this year," he said, although he added that GAIL did not expect to swap any of the Gazprom cargoes this year.

The much-delayed Kochi-Mangalore natural gas pipeline, which can open up a substantial latent demand in South India, will be ready by November, he said.

The pipeline will connect Petronet LNG's 5 million-tonne-per-year regasification terminal at Kochi in southern India to demand centers in and around Mangalore, including a refinery run by Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd and Managalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd and fertilizer plants.

GAIL is also working on implementing a national gas grid that is aimed at connecting the under-served eastern part of the country to the rest of the nation.

"We are trying to implement a large portion of the gas grid by 2022/23. The 4,000 kilometers (2,500 miles) which GAIL is implementing today should be ready by December 2022," Tripathi said.

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Earlier:

2018, February, 9, 10:50:00 INDIA NEED LNG REUTERS - India’s push to more than double the share natural gas has in its energy mix to 15 percent by 2022 will require a huge increase in imports and the construction of more LNG terminals, a government official said on Wednesday.

2017, December, 27, 12:35:00 INDIA'S STRONG GROWTH IMF - Since the 2011 Financial Sector Assessment Program (FSAP), India has recorded strong growth in both economic activity and financial assets, supported by important structural reforms and terms of trade gains.

2017, November, 20, 09:05:00 INDIA'S GAS WILL UP REUTERS - India’s natural gas consumption is expected to rise to 70 billion cubic metres (bcm) by 2022 and 100 bcm by 2030, according to a government think tank and the Oxford Institute of Energy Studies, up from 50 bcm now. India burns just 7 percent of what top user the United States consumes in a year with about a quarter of India’s population.

2017, November, 1, 13:25:00 INDIA'S GAS WILL UP TO 15% Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government wants to raise the share of natural gas in India’s energy mix to 15 percent in the next few years from about 6.5 percent now.

2017, October, 13, 12:45:00 JAPAN - INDIAN LNG India will work with Japan to make long-term liquefied natural gas (LNG) import deals more affordable for its price-sensitive consumers, it said on Wednesday, as these two big importers try to secure better prices and concessions from suppliers.

2017, August, 3, 12:20:00 INDIA'S LPG WILL UP 10% India's LPG imports are expected to rebound from July onwards and is on track for a 10% annual increase in the current fiscal 2017-2018 (April-March), after plunging to the lowest in two years in June, trade sources from four oil and gas companies in India said recently.

2017, July, 3, 13:50:00 INDIAN - IRANIAN GAS INVESTMENT The Indian consortium led by the state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) is willing to spend as much as $11bn to develop the giant Iranian natural gas field it discovered in 2008.