Petronet charters Exmar LNG carrier

Petronet LNG Ltd, India’s largest liquefied natural gas importer, has awarded a 25 year charter agreement for one additional LNG ship from a consortium led by Exmar of Belgium at a day rate of about $82,000. Exmar, together with its Indian consortium partners, Varun Shipping Company and Indian Oil Corporation, will supply a 156.100m³ dual fuel diesel electric LNG tanker to be built at the Korean shipyard of Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering (DSME) at a cost of $200 million. Delivery is slated for the last quarter of 2009.

The consortium partners will establish a new joint venture company in India for owning and operating the LNG tanker and Petronet will take a 23% stake in the shipping consortium. This contract is for the importation of LNG to meet the requirement of expansion of the Dahej Terminal in India by 2.5 million tonnes to 7.5 million tonnes by 2009-10.

Petronet currently uses two 138,000 m³ capacity LNG carriers from a consortium of Mitsui OSK Line-Shipping Corp of India-NYK Line-Qatar Shipping for ferrying 5 million tonnes a year of LNG from Qatar.