Petronet LNG Limited made a loss of roughly Rs. 400 crore in its Kochi operations during the last financial year, the first full year of its operations, as gas off take from the terminal was nearly static with little progress on the supply pipeline.
However, PLL managing director and chief executive officer A.K. Balyan said that there was no question of dumping the project here as the State government was keen to see an early completion of the pipeline work.
While the Dahej LNG terminal in Gujarat operated at more than 100 per cent of its capacity, its Kochi counterpart utilised just about six per cent of the capacity with only two customers regularly drawing fuel from the terminal.
Considering the current capacity underutilisation in Kochi, PLL has been engaged in providing LNG bunker. In another diversified activity, LNG has been unloaded here and reloaded for exports. The terminal also performed gas up and cool down services for an LNG vessel here. The State of Gujarat used up to 40 per cent of the natural gas shipped to the Dahej terminal and the State government earns a revenue of about Rs. 4,000 crore a year in Value Added Tax,
Mr. Balyan said. Considering the off take from the Dahej terminal, PLL was adding another 2.5 million tonnes to its capacity. This will make it one of the largest LNG terminals in the world.
Speaking at a press conference here, he said that PLL wanted to ensure that all parts of the country received natural gas, the cleanest and cheapest fuel now available, and that the choice of Kochi for a terminal was not a wrong one.He said that the Kochi experience had taught PLL to ensure that multiple supply pipelines were ready before the first load of gas arrived at the proposed Gangavararm terminal, near Vishakapattanam, on the East Coast. Work on the remaining portion of the pipeline through Kerala could be completed in six to eight months once the work started, he said.
