Gas Supply NEWS

In a bid to boost the natural gas-based economy, Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas & Housing and Urban Affairs Hardeep Singh Puri dedicated 166 Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) stations to serve the community. The 166 CNG pumps have been set up by GAIL (India) Limited and nine of its group City Gas Distribution (CGD) companies in 41 Geographical Areas (GAs) across 14 states. According to Puri, the CNG stations will incentivise the market of such vehicles and will have a positive impact on manufacturing and employment generation.

Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd (BPCL) announced a new customer-friendly initiative with the launch of cooking gas booking through WhatsApp across the country. WhatsApp booking can be done on BPCL Smartline number — 1800224344 — from the customer’s mobile number registered with the company. BPCL already allows customers to book LPG through other channels like IVRS, missed call, apps, and website among other digital channels apart from its 6,111-strong large distributors.

The Government of India has put forward state-run GAIL’s name as the buyer for gas output from Vedanta’s Barmer block. The production sharing contract for the Barmer block requires producers to sell the output to a government-nominated entity. The block is expected to generate around 4 million metric standard cubic meters a day (mmscmd). GAIL and Vedanta have been in a long-drawn negotiation row over the pricing of the output.

China’s Clean Energy has inked an LNG supply deal with Japanese city gas supplier, Shizuoka Gas. Under the supply deal, Shizuoka Gas will transport 1600 metric tonnes of LNG annually for the next three years to Clean Energy. LNG transportation will be carried out from Shizuoka’s Shimizu terminal through ISO tank containers. Currently, Shizuoka Gas is the only firm capable of re-exporting fuel by re-loading LNG onto ships.

Australian energy major, Woodside Energy has informed about the successful commission of the Pluto domestic gas pipeline. Woodside used the Pluto pipeline by delivering first gas to the 1600 kms-long Dampier to Bunbury Natural Gas Pipeline (DBNGP) in Western Australia. The Pluto gas pipeline will add to Woodside’s domestic gas supply portfolio.

South American nation, Argentina will start its first-ever LNG exports in 2019. Gas will be exported from the Vaca Muerta shale play. Belgian energy shipping giant, Exmar will position its floating LNG unit (FLNG) to the Port of Bahía Blanca according to a 10-year deal with Argentina’s energy firm YPF. Argentina will now join the club of global LNG exporting nations.

Woodside Petroleum Ltd informed that it has inked a 20-year gas sale and purchase agreement (SPA) with Perdaman Chemicals and Fertilisers Pty Ltd. The agreement will lead to the pipeline supply of 125 TJ of gas per day for use in Perdaman’s proposed urea plant. Woodside will source the gas to Perdaman from its proposed Scarborough development.

Papua New Guinea (PNG) has agreed to set financial terms for Total’s long-awaited gas project in the country. The project is expected to double LNG exports from PNG. Papua LNG will supply gas for two new processing units at Exxon Mobil’s PNG LNG plant. Negotiations over how revenue would be shared still require more work.

Royal Dutch Shell Plc has secured a 15-year contract to supply liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Sinolam Smarter Energy LNG Power Co owned 441-MW power plant. The facility is currently under construction in Panama. The power plant will utilise roughly 400,000 tonnes of LNG per year. Shell will commence delivery to the facility from 2020.

The newly established government of Pakistan yesterday elevated natural gas prices by 20%. Regarding it as a tough decision, Petroleum Minister Chaudhry Mohammad Sarwar stated that the decision will enable Pakistan to bridge a 152 billion rupee deficit for the two main suppliers - Sui Northern and Sui Southern. The minister held the previous government of now-jailed Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif accountable for the huge deficit.

World’s biggest LNG firm, Qatargas today entered into a 22-year long sale and purchase agreement (SPA) with PetroChina’s international arm, PetroChina International Company Limited. The agreement requires Qatargas to supply China with around 3.4 million tonnes of liquefied natural gas (LNG) per annum. LNG will be supplied from the the Qatargas 2 project, which is a joint venture between ExxonMobil, Qatar Petroleum and Total.

Hess Corporation-owned Shannon LNG has chosen New Fortress Energy to execute the development of the LNG terminal project in Ireland. Re-gasification of LNG received from tankers will be carried out, before delivering it into the national gas network in Ireland. The gas delivery will be done via the 26 km pipeline linked to a connection at Foynes. Operations at Shannon LNG Terminal are expected to commence from 2020.

Trinidad and Tobago is planning to continue to globally ship super-chilled natural gas, and Venezuela is to help the Carribean Island. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister Keith Rowley inked a deal where Trinidad will buy gas from Venezuela’s prolific Dragon Field. The agreement will ensure 150 MMcf of gas supply every day. The deal is said to revive Trinidad’s oil and gas industry.

India is, reportedly, in talks to negotiate over the prices of natural gas to be imported through the proposed $10 billion Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline. The discussion escalated in light of the current slump in global energy markets. India signed a gas sale purchase agreement (GSPA) in 2013 that benchmarked the price of natural gas to be exported by Turkmenistan at 55% of the present crude oil price.

Oil Search Ltd has informed that the Papua New Guinea LNG project has entered into an agreement to supply liquefied natural gas (LNG) to British oil supermajor, BP. In a statement released yesterday, Oil Search said that about 450,000 tonnes of LNG will be supplied annually to a BP unit, over an initial three-year period. The firm did not disclose any deal amount.

In an attempt to expand its capacity and increase the possibility of two-way flow, Bulgaria has opened a new 20-km looping section of its transit gas pipeline to Turkey. Bulgaria will transport Russian gas from the TurkStream pipeline to Europe. According to officials, the looping link will enhance the Transbalkan pipeline's capacity to 15.7bcm and will increase the security of gas supplies.

In a recent development reported by sources, ONGC has sold CBM gas from its blocks in Jharkhand. The buyers of ONGC’s CBM gas were HN Roy industries, GAIL India Ltd and Positron Energy Pvt Ltd. The three companies will receive their CBM gas supply from Bokaro, North Karanpura, and Jharia blocks respectively, for a price ranging between $5.77- $6.12 per MMBtu.