Economic Times Edition Delhi
21.4.2016 Page 19
Height 14.35cm Width 14.59 cm
Cochin Shipyard Stuck with Three
LNG Carriers as Pvt Cos Back Out
the local manufacturing condition,
sources sa id. Cochin Shipyard has
no experience in building LNG
ships, which require far more sophist icated technology than ordinaNew Delhi: State-run Cochin Sh ipyardmay alone have to build three
ry carrier s. Which is why Cochin
has partnered with Sarnsung,
liquefied natural gas (LNG) carrier s as private yards baulk, raising
whichwu uld help build a thi.rdofthe
the risk of d elivery d elays for GALNG ships in India while buiJding
the balance a t its Korean shipyard.
IL's ship charter pl an, a key 'Make
in Ind ia' in iti ative in the oil sec tor.
Earlier two other Korean shipm aGAIL plans tocharterat least nine
ker s - Hyundai and Daewoo - were
LNG vessels to bring home from the L G carriers, sources sa id, as it is keen on par tic ipatin g in the proUSup to5.8 million tonne of gasan- look in g to partly se ll gas at source cess but dropped pla ns after the ir
nua lly fro m early 2Ol8. Aflermulti- inthe US and may not need to brin g local partners 1..&1' and Pipavav
pie tenders and extensions, the the entire commodity hom e.
shipyards respectivelypuUed back.
A source close to GA IL played
company has received bids fr om
Since transporting gas from the US
two J apanese consortiums for th is. is fahi y expensive. GAll.. is a lso ex- down fear s of delivery r isk byal loEach bidder had to bid for a t least ploringtheoption toswap some of its win gCochin to bu ild a ll three local
three ships of which at least one US gas for five years. It has Ooated vessels, a rguing the yard would hahas to be made locally:
tender s seeking vendors interested ve nearly six years to deliver the
"Bids ar e not full y aligned with in taking its gas from the US for own first ship and anoth er year for addithe tender," a SOlD'ce close toGA TL consumption 01' d ien ts and delive- ti ona l ships. 1'he u sual time to busa id. The Japanese consortiums ring the equivalent quantity in India. ild a n LNG vessel is 30-33 months,
1'he J apanese consortium of Mit- he sa id, adding tha t Samsun g can
have sought severa l devia ti ons in
t he ir bid s a nd GAIL executives sui OSK Lines Ltd (MO L), Nippon do m ost of its d esign and engi neewi II s pend a month or so ta l kin g to Yusen Kabush i ki Kaisha Ltd (NY K r ing at its Korean shipyard and unbidders, under standin g their po- Line) and Mitsu i &Co Ltd has bid to dertake only key construction
ints, per su adin g them to with - supply six vessels whi le the other works at Cochin, he lping save time.
draw lhose d ev ia tion san d reach a group of Mitsubishi Cor pora tion ,
1'he vessels fr om foreign shi pycommon gro und , sources said .
Kawasak i Kisen Kai sha Ltd (K Li- ards have to be delivered between
Once the common ground is rea- ne), GasLog Ltd a nd Fores igh t Oil J anuary-May 2019 a nd from Indian
ched on techn o-commerci al crite- Ltd has bid for four ships, sour ces shi pyards between Ju ly 2022 and
l; a, probably in two m on t hs, GAIL c\ose to GAIL sa id.
J une 2023, accordin g to the tender
will open price bids, a source sa id.
Both the consortiums havepartne- documenL An LNG vessel on aver aGAIL may award fewe r than nine red with Cochi.n Shipyard to meet gecostabout S200 mUJion.
Sanjeev.Choudhary
@timesgroUD. com
LNG IMPORTPLAN
GAIL plans to charter at
least 9 LNG vessels to
bring home from the US
up to 5.8 MT of gas annually from early 2018
Financial Express Edition Delhi
21.4.2016 Page 3
Height 14.63cm Width 17.70 cm
SC upholds government's
LNG pool-pricing policy
Indullhan
tiew Oe!N,P-priI20
HE Supreme Court
has
upheld
the
govcrnml'nt's
2007
direetive facilitating pool·
pricing of re-gasified liquefll'<l natural gas(RLNG).
T
The government. in order
to make fuel affordable to the
Dabhol power plant. had decid,'<l to raise the priceof LNG
importl'<l by Petronet LNG
from Qatar on two long·term
contracts by averaging its
price\\1th thecostlier LNG im·
ported for the new consumer.
Ratn.,giri Gasffild Power.
Petrone!"s long·term LNG
import price of $2.53 per
million British thermal unit
(mBtu) was averaged with
spot LNG, priced at about
$8.5 permlltu.
The Central government's
notification had then d.lJ'Ected
state-rlUl oil companies IOC.
GAIL and IlPCL- Petronet's
partners - to charge lmiform
prices from existing and new
consumers.' The petrolelUn
ministry's letter dated March
6, 2007, on uniform pooled
priceaf RLNG had resulted in
price differences in RNLG for
then existingconswners such
as Essar Steel and Gujarat
State Petroletun Corporation
and new consumers like Rat-
nagiriGasandPower,develaperaf Dabhal po-,verplanl.
A benchheadedby Justice V
GopalaGowdaanTllesdaydis·
missedvariausappealsflledby
Essar Steel, Essar Po......r and
Gujarat State Petroletun Cor,
poration (GSPC), chalJengb1g
the Glliarat High Court's 200l
judgment, which upheld the
Centre's natification facilltat·
ingpool·pricingaf RLNG.
The cOmpanies had saught
cancdlation of the Centre's
decisian to make a policy
change even in existing contracts. They alleged that the
state-run oil firms had arbi·
trariIy and illegally increased
the prices charged from it un·
dertheexistinglong·termcon·
tracts having a fixed price.
Questioning the policy far
uniform ·pooled price of imported RLNG, Essar had ar·
gued that the same had been
framed anly as short·term,
stap-gap arrangement ta
beneflt ane entity, Ralnagiri
Gas&Power(erstwhileDabhal), in Maharashtra.
However, cOuntering the
charge, the ga,.. rnment had
arguedthatthepolicydeclsion
was in public interest, as Es·
sar'scontractwasnot\\1thany
privateflrm: but ",;th ~tronet
LNG, which is a special pur·
pose vehicle farmed by the ail
PSUsandathers,and is thepri·
mary supplier of LNG. Besides, the agreement had a
clause for price variations.
While Essar Steel and oth·
ers had challenged the direc·
tive to average the la ng·term
LNG price of Petronet with
high-cost, shart·term fuel
purchase for Dabhal in the
Delhi High Caurt, GSPC and
athers had challenged the or·
der that raised prices of LNG
for existing Petro net eus·
tamers in the Gujarat HC.
Hindu Edition Vijayawada
20.4.2016 Page 6
Height 15.57cm Width 8.70 cm
GAIL completes frrst
phase of pipeline
replacement
KV.5. IlHASKAK
RAJAMAHENDRAVARAM: The Gas
Authority of India Limited
(GA IL), w hich suffered a maio r setback on June 27, 2014,
fo llowing a blast at Nagaram
It is ready to
restore gas supply
to power plants
and industries in
one month's time
of Marnidikudu mandai in
East Godavari district that re- ited capacity. In a month's
sulted in snapping of gas sup- ti me, they wi ll be operationa l
ply to all private power plants to their fu ll capacity," he said.
in Andhra Pradesh and the
In all , 20 persons were
ki lled and 15 orhers iniured in
the incident.
Mr. Iyer sa id that Union
placement of pipelines in the Petroleum Minister DharKG Basin regiona l network by mendra Pradhan ordered an
investing Rs.996 crore.
inquiry by a committee head "We have kept everyt hing ed by a Joint Secretary and
ready, and one month from compr ising representatives
now we arc going to supply of HPCL, Oil Industry Safety
gas at a minimum of 5 lakh Directorate, and NOMA. The
Mi ll ion Metric Standard Cu- committee wou ld submit its
bic
Meter
per
Day report soon.
(MMSCMD) to a ll power
The GAIL, on its part, had
plants and industries. GAIL, already suspe nded its Ge nerRaja hmundry, is rcadyto sup- al Manager who was holding
ply more than that if higher fort at the time of the
officials permit us," said M.v. incident.
Iyer, Gene ral Manager, after
For monitoring the health
the media conference on of non -piggable pipelines,
Tuesday.
long range ultrasonic thick"At present, all the power ness survey has been complants are operating with lim - pleted.
AP Power Generation Corpo -
ration, has successfully completed rhe first phase of re-
Free Press Journal Edition Mumbai
20.4.2016 Page 17
Height 21.30cm Width 13.76 cm
No woman director
in 56 NSE-listed cos
New Delhi
As many as 56 companies including Tata Power, Alstom
India, state-run ONGC and
GAIL have failed to comply
with regulator Sebi's norms
to appoint at least one
woman director on board,
leading data provider Prime
Database said.
These non-compliant firms
include a host of PSUs
(Public Sector Units) and
PSBs
(Public
Sector
Banks), reports PTI.
All listed firms were required to have at least one
woman director on their
boards from April 1, 2015,
as per a Sebi directive , as
also under Companies Act,
2013 . These rules are aimed
at ensuring gender diversity in boardrooms.
BEML, BPCL, Hindustan
Organic Chemicals, HMT,
lOC, MMTC, National Fertilisers, Power Finance
Corp, Syndicate Bank, Rural Electrification Corp,
Oriental Bank of Com-
GENDER
BENDER
merce, State Trading Corp
and Madras Fertilisers are
among the PSU s that are yet
to comply with Sebi's directive. Some of the private entities that still have to induct women directors are
Lanco Infratech, DB Corp,
Valecha Engineering, Servalakshmi Paper and Salora International.
Interestingly, a significant
number of firms appointed
a woman member from the
promoter family to comply
with the rule within the
deadline.
Acting against listed firms
without
a
mandatory
woman director, Sebi in
April 2015 announced a
minimum Rs 50,000 fine and
warned of further action,
including against promoters and directors, if they remain non-compliant beyond six months.