The LNG terminal project proposed at Gangavaram Port by Petronet LNG Limited (PLL), a joint venture of leading public sector oil companies, is in a limbo.
Though the MoU was signed in 2012 for the ₹9,000-crore project, for which environmental public hearing was conducted in 2013, has not taken off due to a variety of problems like clearances for pipeline connectivity and achieving financial closure.
The project proponent was supposed to establish re-gasification facility at Gangavaram by hiring a floating bulk carrier.
As per the detailed project report, import, storage, and re-gasification facilities were to come up at the port for the 10 million tonne per annum facility to be taken up in two phases.
In the first phase, raw material was to be imported and transported directly to customers and, in the second phase, re-gasified fuel was to be supplied through pipeline as per the recommendations of the M.B. Lal Committee set up by the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas.
As on date, the PLL has not initiated anything.
Industry sources told The Hindu that problems with regard to obtaining clearances for the pipelines and raising funds for the ambitious project were the reasons attributed for the project remaining a non-starter.
The joint venture company in which the GAIL, the ONGC, the IOCL, and the BPCL are partners was supposed to make its third terminal at Gangavaram, the first on the East Coast, operational by 2016.
Anakapalle MP Muttamsetti Srinivasa Rao had raised in Lok Sabha the delay in establishing connectivity with the Kakinada-Srikakulam pipeline of the A.P. Gas Distribution Corporation, and pointed out that the delay had led to non-grounding of any work on the LNG terminal.
