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After two weeks of waiting in the outer channel, the first cargo vessel carrying liquefied gas from RasGas in Qatar to the Petronet LNG terminal here anchored on Tuesday morning.
The vessel Wilenergy, carrying around one lakh cubic metres of LNG, has been anchored about 20 km off Kochi since August 11.
It could not berth in the terminal due to a shallow draught in the area after a prolonged monsoon. Later, the port authorities carried out dredging to attain a draught of 12.5 metres to enable the vessel to anchor.
With this shipment, the Rs 4,200 crore LNG terminal with an annual capacity of 5 million tonnes is set to commence operations shortly.
However, the terminal operates at just 8 per cent of its capacity in the first year due to the absence of potential customers.
Currently, two customers — BPCL (Kochi Refinery) and Fertilizers and Chemicals Travancore (FACT) — have come forward to source the gas.
The public sector firms are in the process of converting their facilities to change the feedstock from naphtha to natural gas.
Besides, GAIL is laying pipelines to transport the gas to customers in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. The company reportedly plans to import four to five shiploads of LNG at the terminal in 2013-14.
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