Mangalore: Billion Dollar LNG Terminal planned in City by Hindujas

Source: Business Line/PTI  
Daijiworld Media Network – Mangalore (NR)
 
Mangalore, Jan 14: Very soon the city will be having its very own billion dollar Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) terminal to fulfill its growing energy needs. An LNG terminal is in the pipeline in city by the Hinduja group in association with state-owned ONGC. This will be part of an investment of $20 billion for oil exploration in two fields in Iran and 15 million tonne refinery to be set-up in Kakinada in the country.

According to the Hinduja group executive vice chairman Subir Raha "The two fields in Iran that have been identified for oil exploration, are of world-class size. We are looking at setting-up a refinery in Kakinada and a LNG terminal at Mangalore."
In this context, he added that the investment for setting-up an LNG terminal in the city and a refinery at Kakinada in India will be to the tune of $10 billion totally, while an equal amount will be set aside for the Iran investment for oil exploration. The areas to be focused on have already been identified and the next step would be that of negotiations, he informed.

The development of Phase 12 of the giant South Pars field and the Azadegan field would cost $8 billion, while setting up a facility to liquefy the gas for export as LNG, another $2 billion. In India, the consortium plans to invest $5 billion for setting up a 15 million tonnes refinery, $1 billion in LNG terminal and $3-4 billion in power and petrochemical plants.

Memorandum of Understandings (MoUs) have already been signed by the Hinduja group with two Iranian firms namely Petropars and PetroIran, Bwhich have been given the fields. ONGC Videsh, overseas arm of ONGC and Hinduja's Ashok Leyland Project Services are negotiating an agreement with Naftiran Intertrade Co and Petropars.