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Arijit De
Mumbai, July 6: The project cost of the Tata Electric Companies (TEC) and the French energy major Total SA-promoted liquified natural gas (LNG) project, christened India Natural Gas Co (Indigas), has been pegged at Rs 2,530 crore for the first phase.
The first phase will have a capacity of three million tonne per annum which will be expanded to six million tonne later, making it the largest proposed LNG project in India so far.
Though the targeted commissioning date has been set for March 2003, sources in the Tata group said plans are afoot so that the project can go on stream earlier.
Societe General has been awarded the mandate of financial advisory. The projected debt-equity ratio for the first phase is 65:35, but other financial details could not be ascertained at this stage.
The mandate for the basic engineering package has been given to the Dutch major Fluor Daniel. The project, which is expected to be one of the least-cost LNG import terminals being developed in India, will be set up inTrombay, Maharashtra.
TEC's power station at Trombay, with a capacity of 1,350 mw, would provide an anchor market for the project and will consume around one million tonnes per annum out of the phase I capacity of three million tonnes.
The balance will be supplied to the large industrial consumers in the nearby region for which adequate demand exists. The LNG will be sourced from the middle east where Total has a share in four LNG plants and negotiations in this regard are underway.
Indigas is also the largest proposed LNG project in India so far. Other than the Petronet-promoted terminals of 5 million tonnes each, Enron is setting up a 5 million tonne terminal at Dabhol (2.5 million tonne in phase I) while an Aditya Birla-led consortium, which includes global majors like Unocal and CMS Energy, proposes to set up a 2.5 million tonne terminal at Ennore, Tamil Nadu.
The foray into LNG part of TEC's plans to emerge as a fully integrated energy company. The power major is also aggressively exploiting thecaptive power plants business.
Copyright © 1999 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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