Asia Pulse: ROYAL DUTCH/SHELL TO SELL GAS TO INDIA'S GSPC AT US$3.70 PER MBTU: “This is the first cargo that Shell has sold from the terminal. The gas has been sourced from Australia's North West Shelf project, in which Shell has a 22 per cent stake.” (ShellNews.net) 25 April 05

NWE DELHI, April 25 Asia Pulse - Royal Dutch/Shell, Europe's second largest oil firm, will sell 0.7 million standard cubic metres per day of gas from its newly commissioned Hazira LNG terminal to Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation.

Shell, which announced the start of operations of the Rs 30 billion Hazira terminal Thursday, had contracted to sell 0.7 mmscmd for 210 days at a price of US$3.70 per million British Thermal Unit (mbtu), industry sources said.

Shell's price is slightly higher than Petronet LNG Ltd's (NSI:PLNG) sale price of US$3.66 per mbtu, the sources said.

This is the first cargo that Shell has sold from the terminal. The gas has been sourced from Australia's North West Shelf project, in which Shell has a 22 per cent stake.

Hazira terminal is the first merchant terminal in Asia which does not follow the conventional model of sourcing LNG from a particular project on long-term and then tying up long term sales contract with customers in the importing countries.

Shell after assessing the needs of a customer and the price that it is willing to pay, will scout for LNG in global markets and if suppliers' terms match with the customers requirment a 'match-making' will take place.

A Shell-controlled tanker, the 136,000 cubic meters Gemmata, carried the first cargo. The shipping of LNG was in conformity with the new LNG shipping laws, Vikram Singh Mehta, chairman of Shell Group of companies in India said Thursday.

The current policy does not allow LNG import on freight-on-board (FoB) basis and so Shell has imported the cargo on ex-ship basis (cif) which was in conformity with the norms, he said.

(PTI)

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