The newly constructed Rs 6,000 crore LNG import facility at Dhamra on the coast of Odisha, owned by the Adani Group and the French company TotalEnergies, has received its first ever shipment of liquefied natural gas. This fuel will be used to make steel, fertiliser, CNG, and cooking gas, changing the landscape of Eastern India. The natural gas in its frozen state (LNG), which will be used to commission the facility, arrived by Qatari ship "Milaha Ras Laffan" at Dhamra Port on April 1 morning, according to officials.
Up to 45 days will be required for commissioning and testing, after which commercial operations are anticipated to begin. In order to increase natural gas utilisation in the nation's energy mix from its current 6.3% to 15% by 2030, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has to start the 5 million tonne per year LNG import terminal. Just the second LNG import facility on the entire east coast, Dhamra is the only one in eastern India. The five other terminals are located on the nation's western coast (three in Gujarat, one each in Maharashtra and Kerala).
The cargo delivered on April 1 would be used by Adani Total Pvt Ltd, in which Adani Group and TotalEnergies SE each own a 50% stake, to do safety checks and test various systems, official said. After passing all inspections, the terminal would be prepared to begin operations for profit, with an anticipated import of 2.2–2.3 million tonnes of LNG in the first year and a gradual ramp-up to full capacity in the next.
On March 21, Qatargas loaded the Milaha Ras Laffan, a vessel with a 135,000 cubic metre capacity. TotalEnergies furnished the test shipment from its inventory.
State-owned GAIL (India) Ltd. and Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) have reserved capacity at the tolling facility Dhamra. At the terminal, LNG will be imported and transformed back into gas before being routed to refineries and fertiliser factories. Also, it will be transformed into CNG for use in driving vehicles and pumped into homes' kitchens for cooking. It has a 20-year take-or-pay contract to offer IOC with 3 million tonne per year of LNG regasification services and GAIL with 1.5 million tonne per year.
Officials said, the commissioning cargo was delivered on Utkal Divas, the day that the state of Odisha (formerly Orissa) was established in 1936. ' The commissioning of the terminal has officially started, with a few steps to be finished in the upcoming weeks.
The terminal will have the capacity to berth the greatest variety of LNG tankers throughout the year and move gas via pipelines, trucks, or reloaded vessels. It contains two of the largest storage tanks in the nation, each with a capacity of 180,000 cubic metres.
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