Report: Petronet expects LNG-fueled transport to lift demand

Petronet LNG, India’s largest importer of the chilled fuel intends to focus on ships and vehicles fueled by liquefied natural gas to push the demand up. 

Prabhat Singh, the company’s CEO said the shift to using LNG as fuel in transportation in India, where a number of industrial users are not linked to the natural gas grid, will create ‘reasonable demand’, Reuters reports.

In addition, Singh said that a larger portion of 200,000 trucks joining India’s roads on an annual basis could run on LNG.

He also revealed that India’s government could officially allow the use of LNG as fuel for transport in the coming week.

The country launched its first LNG bus at the beginning of November. The bus will run on a trial basis as a part of a pilot project before it can be certified for commercial application.

The bus was delivered to the Kochi LNG terminal for fueling, and as the company prepares to build retail outlets, the terminal, that is currently operating at about 6 to 7 percent capacity due to the lack of connection to the natural gas grid, could start operating at full capacity.

India is also working on increasing its LNG import capacity from 21.3 million tons per annum currently, to 50 mtpa by 2022.

Petronet LNG has recently fully commissioned the expanded Dahej LNG terminal raising the its capacity from 10 mtpa to 15 mtpa.

LNG World News Staff