Rediff (India): Shell suspends Hazira operations: Saturday 31 December 2005

Kamlesh Trivedi in Ahmedabad | December 31, 2005 06:35 IST

Royal Dutch/Shell has terminated its operations for the time being at its Hazira terminal in Gujarat.

"Shell Hazira has towed away all four of its tugboats to Dubai, dried up its storage tank and closed operations for the time being at the Hazira port," said sources in the LNG industry.

When contacted by Business Standard, Nitin Shukla, CEO of Shell Hazira, refused to comment on the issue. But industry sources said the company could have terminated the operations owing to the price difference between the global prices of LNG and the price Indian buyers were willing to pay.

The drying up of LNG supply had caused a shortage of nearly 0.7 million cubic metres per day for industry in Gujarat, the sources said. Many industrial units may have to turn to the expensive naphtha until LNG supply is restored.

Shell Hazira had received its last shipment during the first week of October 2005. Of this, about half had been lying unused with the company. The Hazira terminal of Shell has one tank with storage capacity of 138 million cubic metres.

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