India’s LNG imports in July increased by 6 percent in July following a decrease in June as the country loosened Covid-19 coronavirus restrictions.
India imposed a nationwide lockdown from the last week of March to stop the spread of the coronavirus and started easing the restrictions during May and June.
However, oil and gas demand is still low and it will take time for recovery to pre-Covid levels.
The country imported 2.96 billion cubic meters or about 2.17 million tonnes of LNG in July, data from the oil ministry’s Petroleum Planning and Analysis Cell shows.
Furthermore, the value of July LNG imports eased to $0.5 billion compared to $0.8 billion in the same month last year.
As per India’s domestic natural gas production, it dropped 10 percent during July to 2.44 bcm.
To remind, India’s LNG imports during the fiscal year ending March 2020 rose 17.2 percent year-on-year to 33.7 bcm or about 25 million tonnes.
In the April-July period, the country imported 9.96 bcm or about 7.32 million tonnes.
This represents a decline of 7.7 percent compared to the same period last year.
India currently imports LNG via six terminals with a combined capacity of 42.5 million tonnes.
Utilzation of these facilities started gradually to pick after it nosedived in April due to corona restrictions.
Petronet LNG’s 17.5 mtpa Dahej terminal operated at 80.7 percent capacity while Shell’s 5 mtpa Hazira terminal operated at 87.8 percent capacity in April-June, the PPAC data shows.