India’s Petronet LNG Limited has celebrated its first vessel call to its new terminal at Kochi, Kerala, says The Hindu.
LNG carrier, Wilenergy, called at the terminal this week to make its first delivery of 123,000 cubic metres of LNG. It will be berthed at the terminal for over a week during which time the storage tanks will be cooled down in order to receive the gas at a temperature of -160C.
Commercial supplies of regasified LNG to BPCL Kochi Refinery and FACT, the first two LNG consumers in the state, is set to begin shortly afterwards.
Although Petronet had hoped to supply piped natural gas for domestic consumption thereafter, Business Standard says that this will be delayed due to the time delay in land acquisitions for pipeline laying between Kochi and Bangalore and Kochi and Mangalore.
This it says will mean that the new LNG terminal will be using less than 10% of its capacity for the time being.
The Kochi terminal has a capacity of 5 MMTPA, equivalent to 20 MMSCMD of natural gas.
