India’s Mundra LNG terminal gets 10th cargo

India’s newest LNG import facility at Mundra, Gujarat has received its tenth cargo of the fuel following the launch in January.

The 174,000 cubic meter TFDE LNG carrier GasLog Greece delivered the cargo to the Mundra facility on June 21.

The Shell-chartered LNG carrier previously loaded the fuel at Cheniere’s Sabine Pass facility in Lousiana.

This also marked a milestone 1000th loading at Cheniere’s US LNG export facility.

The US LNG cargo Gaslog Greece delivered to Mundra is the tenth shipment following the first commissioning cargo supplied by LNG giant Qatargas in late January.

Mundra terminal operator GSPC LNG is a joint venture consisting of Gujarat State Petroleum Corp and Adani Group.

The facility has a five mtpa import capacity and features two storage tanks, each with a capacity of 160,000 cbm.

India currently imports chilled fuel via six LNG import terminals with a combined capacity of 42.5 mtpa.

According to PPAC, utilzation of these facilities nosedived in April due to coronavirus lockdown restrictions with imports dropping by almost 30 per cent.

For example, Mundra capacity utiilziation was only at 2 per cent, while the country’s most active terminal in Dahej opearted at just 3 per cent capacity.

Howevher, as government started easing the restrictions in the second part of May so did LNG imports start picking up.

India’s LNG imports in May increased by 0.5 per cent year-on-year to about 1.8 million tonnes, PPAC data showed.