India has paid $1.2 billion for its LNG imports in May, a rise of 33.3 percent year-on-year, while monthly volumes dropped again, according to preliminary data from the oil ministry’s Petroleum Planning and Analysis Cell.
LNG imports in May declined by 3.5 percent to 2.53 billion cubic meters, or about 1.86 million tonnes, the data shows. They rose compared to the previous month.
During April-May, India took 4.94 bcm, or some 3.62 million tonnes, down by 9.6 percent when compared to the same period last year, PPAC said.
On the other side, natural gas production in May increased by 6.4 percent to 2.91 bcm. Gas production rose by 9.6 percent in April-May to 5.74 bcm.
India’s monthly LNG imports have been constantly dropping this year due to mostly high spot prices.
Asian spot LNG prices remained high during this entire year and they further rose in the last two weeks due to reduced flows of Russian gas in Europe and the Freeport LNG outage.
The JKM LNG price currently trades at more than $37 per MMBtu for August.
At the moment, India imports LNG via six facilities with a combined capacity of about 42.7 million tonnes.
Petronet LNG’s 17.5 mtpa Dahej terminal operated at 87.5 percent capacity while Shell’s 5 mtpa Hazira terminal operated at 47.2 percent capacity in April, PPAC said.