From LNG World Shipping
Two LNG cargoes due to arrive at Indian subcontinent receiving facilities in April will mark the inauguration of important new trades. The first shipment is scheduled to arrive at Dabhol on India’s west coast on 5 April while the second has an eta at the Bangladeshi island of Moheshkhali in the Bay of Bengal on 23 April.
The Dabhol cargo is the first to be lifted from Cheniere Energy’s Sabine Pass liquefaction facility in the US state of Louisiana under a long-term sale and purchase agreement (SPA) with India’s state-run Gas Authority of India Ltd (GAIL).
Signed by GAIL and Cheniere in December 2011, the SPA covers the delivery of 3.5 million tonnes per annum (mta) of LNG for 20 years on a free-on-board basis, commencing in March 2018.
The inaugural cargo under the SPA is being transported to Dabhol in Maharashtra state via the Suez Canal on board the 165,000 m3 Meridian Spirit. Total has recently sublet one of its long-term charter vessels to GAIL under a three-year agreement to lift US cargoes.
GAIL holds a 75% stake in the Dabhol terminal following its demerger from the adjacent 500 MW power plant. Cargo-handling at the facility is currently limited to the seven-month period from October to May but the construction of a breakwater, now underway and due for 2019 completion, will offset the disruptive impact of the monsoon season’s ocean swells and permit year-round operations.
In addition to its Cheniere SPA GAIL has also signed up for 2.3 mta of the output from the newly commissioned Cove Point export project in Chesapeake Bay. Initially, the Indian company planned to commission a long-term charter fleet of nine LNGCs to load the Sabine Pass and Cove Point cargoes but more recently has been successful in either swapping or selling about 60% of the 5.8 mta of US LNG it had agreed to buy. As a result, it estimates it will only require a charter fleet of three or four vessels.
The cargo to Moheshkhali Island will be transported by Excelerate Energy’s 138,000 m3 Excellence, the floating storage and regasification unit (FSRU) that will take up position as the country’s first LNG import terminal on arrival on site. Excellence will be moored utilising a submerged turret loading device which allows the FSRU and any delivery LNG carrier tethered to it in a side-by-side arrangement to weathervane during cargo transfer operations.
Excellence is currently being serviced in the DryDocks World repair yard in Dubai, after which it will sail to Ras Laffan in Qatar to load the inaugural Bangladeshi LNG shipment. Petrobangla, the state oil and gas company of Bangladesh, has signed a 15-year, 2.5 mta SPA with Qatargas to underpin this project.
Bangladesh is developing a number of LNG import projects and the second to reach fruition will be Summit LNG. Due to commence operations in October 2018, Summit, like Excelerate, will make use of an FSRU based near Moheshkhali Island and able to process up to 3.75 mta of LNG.
