Petronet LNG Limited (PLL), on Tuesday, said its second LNG terminal at Kochi in Kerala would be commissioned early next month with the arrival of the first cargo ship loaded with LNG on August 10.
“We have contracted a cargo ship load LNG from RasGas of Qatar which will arrive on August 10. It will take about a week to test and commission the facilities,” PLL Managing Director A. K. Balyan told reporters here.
However, he said, the terminal would operate at just 7-8 per cent of the 5 million tonnes capacity in the first year in the absence of a pipeline to carry the fuel to Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. “GAIL (India) has assured that the pipeline will be in place in a year’s time, and till then the gas currently will be sold to local chemical plant and refinery,” he added.In addition to this, Mr. Balyan said the Dahej import facility in Gujarat would be expanded to 15 million tonnes per annum from 10 million tonnes by December 2016. “We have completed financial closure for the expansion project that will cost Rs.3,000 crore,’’ he said.
Petronet Director (Finance) R. K. Garg said the company had tied up a Rs.2,250-crore term loan from Indian lenders led by State Bank of India and HDFC. “We have got very attractive rate of SBI base rate plus 25 basis points. At current rate, this comes to 9.95 per cent,” he said.
Drop in profit
Meanwhile, the company reported a 17 per cent drop in its June quarter net profit on account of lower margins. The April-June quarter net profit at Rs.225 crore was lower than Rs.271 crore net profit during the same period a year ago.
