India's Petronet to sign deal to extend Qatar LNG imports beyond 2028

Petronet LNG

03/01/2024 08:43

By Nidhi Verma
       NEW DELHI, Jan 3 (Reuters) - India's top gas importer
Petronet LNG  PLNG.NS  is likely to sign a deal this month to
extend its long-term liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports from
Qatar to beyond 2028, India's Oil Secretary said on Wednesday.
    Petronet has a 7.5-million metric ton per year (tpy)
long-term LNG import deal with Qatar and its promoters Indian
Oil Corp  IOC.NS , Bharat Petroleum Corp  BPCL.NS  and GAIL
(India) Ltd  GAIL.NS  has a 1 million tpy deal.
    Indian companies had until the end of 2023 to negotiate with
Qatar for renewal of the deals to beyond 2028.
    "We are pretty close to signing the deal," Oil Secretary
Pankaj Jain told reporters.
    Qatar, the world's top LNG exporter, aims to expand its
liquefaction capacity to 126 million tpy by 2027 from 77 million
and has signed long-term deals with European majors Shell
 SHEL.L , TotalEnergies  TTEF.PA  and ENI  ENI.MI .
    It has also signed long-term gas deals with China's Sinopec,
China National Petroleum Corp and Bangladesh.

 (Reporting by Nidhi Verma; Writing by Shivam Patel;Editing by
Elaine Hardcastle)
 ((Shivam.Patel@thomsonreuters.com;))