India's oil ministry said it wants to start importing LNG from Brunei and Indonesia and ramp up oil imports from Kuwait after talks with those countries at the Asian Energy ministry roundtable in Kuwait Monday.
Junior oil minister R.P.N. Singh discussed importing an unspecified amount of LNG as well as increasing the amount of oil it already buys from Brunei, the ministry said in a statement. Indian gas transportation utility GAIL could consider investing in Brunei's upstream industry to create requisite infrastructure for this, it added.
India has also expressed interest in importing up to 5 million mt/year of LNG from Indonesia, the statement said. State-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation had experience in enhanced oil recovery and improved oil recovery techniques, which could be applied to Indonesia's ageing fields, the ministry said.
Indonesia only has limited spare supplies of LNG. The country was one of the region's first ever suppliers of LNG, with its Bontang export terminal starting up in 1977.
Supplies from its old terminals have dwindled of late, but it has spare LNG available due to the end of a legacy contract with Japanese buyers. It can also divert a maximum of half of the 3.7 million mt/year of LNG sales to Sempra from the new Tangguh LNG terminal to other buyers, on condition that they pay $1/MMBtu more than Sempra is willing to pay.
India would have the requisite infrastructure to import a further 5 million mt/year of LNG starting in December 2012, Singh said in the statement.
India's Petronet LNG is building a 5 million mt/year LNG terminal at Kochi on the country's west coast. It already operates a 11.5 million mt/year LNG terminal at Dahej in Gujarat on the same coast.
The company has signed a 20-year supply contract with the Gorgon LNG project in Western Australia for 1.5 million mt/year of LNG to go to the terminal.
Petronet LNG also has long-term contracts with Qatar's RasGas for supply of 7.5 million mt/year, which is currently delivered to the company's Dahej terminal.
During the meeting with Kuwait, Singh said he asked for higher crude oil supplies in the coming years as India expands its refining capacity.
