Ajit Karn
New Delhi: Adani Group and French company TotalEnergies’ newly built 6,000 crore LNG import facility at Dhamra on the coast of Odisha has received its first-ever shipment of liquefied natural gas – a fuel that will be used to make steel, produce fertilisers, and convert to CNG and cooking gas, thereby transforming the landscape of Eastern India.
The Qatari ship ‘Milaha Ras Laffan’ arrived at Dhamra Port on the morning of April 1 with 2.6 trillion British thermal units of liquefied natural gas (LNG), which will be used to commission the facility, according to officials.
Commissioning and testing will take up to 45 days, after which commercial operations are anticipated to commence. The launch of the 5 million-tonne-per-year LNG import terminal is essential to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s plan to increase natural gas use in the country’s energy blend to 15% by 2030, up from the current 6.3 percent.
Dhamra is the sole LNG import terminal in eastern India and the second-only terminal on the entire east coast. Five additional terminals are located on the country’s western coast. (three in Gujarat, one each in Maharashtra and Kerala).
Adani Total Pvt Ltd, in which Adani Group and TotalEnergies SE each hold a 50% stake, will use the cargo received on April 1 for safety inspections and system testing, according to company officials.
Upon completion of all inspections, the terminal would be set to begin commercial operations, with an anticipated 2.2-2.3 million tonnes of LNG imports in the first year and a gradual ramp-up to maximum capacity in the second.
The Milaha Ras Laffan, with a capacity of 135,000 cubic meters, was loaded at Qatargas on March 21. TotalEnergies has furnished the test cargo from its portfolio.
Dhamra is a tolling facility where capacity has been reserved by state-owned GAIL (India) Ltd and Indian Oil Corporation (IOC). At the terminal, they will import LNG, which will be reconverted into gas before being transported to refineries and fertilizer facilities. It will also be converted into compressed natural gas (CNG) and channeled into residential kitchens for cookery.
It has a 20-year contract to provide regasification services for 3 million tonnes per year of LNG to IOC and 1.5 million tonnes per year to GAIL.
The commissioning cargo was received on Utkal Divas, the day the state of Odisha (formerly Orissa) was founded in 1936, according to officials. This signals the beginning of the terminal’s commissioning, which will be completed in phases over the next few weeks.
The terminal will be able to accommodate the largest variety of LNG vessels year-round and convey gas via pipelines, vehicles, and reloaded vessels. It contains two storage containers with a combined capacity of 180,000 cubic meters, making them among the largest in the nation.
They stated that the capacity can be doubled to 10 million tonnes in the future by installing a third reservoir.
Adani Total is a partnership of talent sets that complement one another. TotalEnergies is the third-largest global LNG participant, while Adani has world-class infrastructure and port development capabilities.
Over the past four years, the JV built and delivered the project, overcoming obstacles such as the pandemic, cyclones, difficult soil conditions, supply chain disruptions, and the volatile LNG market caused by the European conflict.
GAIL’s recently completed Urja Ganga pipeline will provide gas access to more than 35 percent of India’s population and approximately 20 percent of the country’s land area, according to GAIL officials.
Refineries, fertiliser plants, industries, and municipal gas networks will be the largest consumers of Dhamra LNG gas in the hinterland.
The Urja Ganga pipeline is also connected to the other National Gas Grid, the Hazira-Vijaipur-Jagdishpur (HVJ) pipeline, providing consumers in the north of the country with an available alternative supply source to the western terminals on which they rely solely at present.
The Srikakulam-Angul and Mumbai-Jharsuguda pipeline projects will soon connect Dhamra to central and southern states, completing the integration of the National Gas Grid.
In comparison to alternative liquid fuels such as naphtha, fuel oil, and diesel, the long-term price of LNG trades at a discount of over $5 per million British thermal units.
Current annual consumption of liquid fuels in the eastern region’s refineries, fertiliser facilities, and industries is approximately 5 million tonnes per year.
They stated that replacing 5 million tonnes of equivalent liquid fuels with LNG would result in an annual savings of USD 1.25 billion (approximately 10,000 crore) for the Indian economy.
LNG is predominantly methane (C1) gas that has been cooled to approximately minus 160 degrees Celsius, at which point it becomes a liquid at atmospheric pressure and occupies less than 1/600th the volume it would otherwise. This enables specialized vessels to transport vast quantities of energy across oceans.
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It is a transitional fuel for India’s energy transition. Global LNG trade reached approximately 400 million tonnes last year. Over the past three years, India’s imports have fluctuated between 22 and 24 million tonnes, or approximately 3% of the country’s primary energy inventory.
