India’s Adani and France’s TotalEnergies have received the first cargo of liquefied natural gas at their Dhamra LNG import facility located in Odisha, on India’s east coast.
The 138,273-cbm Milaha Ras Laffan delivered the commissioning cargo to the Dhamra LNG terminal during the weekend.
According to its AIS data provided by VesselsValue, the 2004-built LNG carrier previously loaded the cargo at the giant Ras Laffan LNG complex, operated by QatarEnergy’s unit Qatargas.
Local media reports suggest that the commissioning of the LNG import facility would take about 45 days, and after that the facility would start commercial operations.
Total Adani, a 50/50 joint venture between Adani and TotalEnergies, owns the Dhamra LNG terminal.
LNG Prime reported in December last year that construction of the LNG import facility was nearing completion.
A unit of TotalEnergies said in February 2021 that the facility was more than 70 percent complete as of December 2020.
Construction of the facility started back in 2018, with India’s Larsen & Toubro responsible for setting up the LNG tanks, while Taiwan’s CTCI Corporation won the contract for the regasification package.
Designed for a capacity of 5 mtpa, the Dhamra terminal features two tanks of 180,000 cbm capacity, each. There is a potential to double the capacity to 10 mtpa.
In addition, the terminal’s jetty is capable of receiving the world’s largest LNG carriers, but also reloading smaller vessels.
TotalEnergies and Adani also plan to distribute LNG via trucks to the region.
As per capacity takers, the JV entered into 20-year LNG regasification agreements with state-owned Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) and GAIL.
This is the seventh operational LNG terminal in India and second on the east coast.
At the moment, India imports LNG via six facilities with a combined capacity of about 42.7 million tonnes.
These include Petronet LNG’s Dahej and Kochi terminals and Shell’s Hazira terminal.
India’s liquefied LNG imports rose for the second month in a row in February due to lower spot prices.