The Hindu Business Line : Petronet plans 5-mt storage tank in Kochi

PETRONET LNG Ltd (PLL), which is setting up a 2.5-million tonne a year LNG terminal at Kochi, will construct a storage tank with a capacity of five million tonnes to expand the capacity of the re-gasification plant later, depending on the rise in demand.

Expansion of the plant would not take much time while the construction of the storage tank would require a longer period for completion, Mr Sham Sunder, Director (Technical), PLL, said on Thursday. He said that the entire requirement of gas for the Kochi terminal would be supplied by Ras Gas, Qatar.

Already, four EPC (engineering, procurement and construction) contractors have been pre-qualified. All of them are foreign companies, but each of them has an Indian member as required by the rules.

He said that the PLL board is expected to select one from these short-listed parties at its meeting scheduled for May 24.

Besides, a US company Flour Daniel, which had conducted the total feasibility study for the project had submitted its draft report which had been approved by Petronet. It had also completed the risk analysis and the final report would be submitted to the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests for its clearance, Mr Sunder said.

Petronet is now looking for another party to prepare the tender documents for the project. Besides, it would be selecting a company for preparing the design. All these process would be over by the end of the year and the work on the project is expected to start early next year.

The advantages of the site are that there is no habitation, populated area is at a distance of around 1.4 km, no forest and agricultural land, infrastructure created by the CPR are available besides there are no archaeologically important structures in the vicinity of the site.

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