Golden Day! India receives first shipment of natural gas from Russia

Gandhinagar, June 5: India on Monday received the first ever cargo of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from its one of the key ally Russia. Notably, in a bid to meet the needs of energy of country, the Indian government had purchased LNG from the United States and Russia.

 

Notably, Russia has finally sent the first ever cargo of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to India. LNG carrier named 'LNG Kano' carried a cargo from Russian supplier Gazprom finally reached to Petronet LNG's import facility in Gujarat's Dahej.

The first consignment was received by Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Dharmendra Pradhan at the terminal. Talking to the media, Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said that it will be considered as golden day in India's energy roadmap. "First we renegotiate price of LNG from Qatar, then reworked Australian supplies and now gas from Russia under renegotiated terms have started to flow," he added.

Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani in tweet said, “Union Minister @dpradhanbjp today received "LNG Kano", the first-ever LNG cargo under the long-term contract between @gailindia & @GazpromEN of Russia at Dahej and termed it as 'golden day' in the India’s energy pursuit & a step towards transforming India into a gas-based economy.”

However, the beginning of supplies from Russia comes within weeks of India importing its first ever LNG cargo from US under a long-term import deal. GAIL had signed the original deal on August 29, 2012, with Gazprom Marketing and Trading Singapore Pte Ltd, Singapore. The deal was renegotiated in January this year with Gazprom to import 2.5 million tonnes of LNG a year.

Interestingly, India will import LNG worth an estimated $25 billion over the contract period of 20 years from Russia. Four years ago, India was importing LNG from only Qatar. But now India is importing LNG from Qatar, Australia, US and Russia.