The
Hindu: Kakinada-AP: Sunday, 03 January 2016.
Three Liquid
Natural Gas (LNG) terminals, one in public private partnership mode and other
two by private investors, are going to compete with each other in East Coast to
fuel economic development of the State and also parts of Telangana and Tamil
Nadu.First PPP in India.
An agreement
was signed between the Andhra Pradesh Gas Development Corporation (APGDC), a
joint venture company between the State government and the Gas Authority of
India Limited (GAIL), GDF SUEZ and Shell companies to construct a Floating
Storage and Regasification Unit (FSRU) at a cost of Rs. 1,800 crore. This
agreement and MoUs were made in September 2015 after public hearing was
conducted twice in Kakinada by the GAIL and the APGDC. The APGDC, GAIL and
Shell companies agreed to produce gas in 2018. But, this consortium has not
sent report on public hearing, MoUs and other required documents to the Ministry
of Environment and Forests (MoEF) till date. “We only received soft copy, but
we want hard copies of DPR (Detailed Project Report) to circulate among the
screening committee members,” said a top official in the MoEF on condition of
anonymity.
According to
GAIL sources, it will take at least six months to get environment clearance
after submission of designs to the MoEF and construction of terminal and
agreements will take another one year.
KG LNG
Terminal
The Krishna
Godavari LNG terminal, the first private terminal in Kakinada Deep Water Port,
completed public hearing in November. “The company has conducted public hearing
without any memo or GO from the State government and every thing was
stage-managed. We have asked the District Collector about the GO copies through
the RTI and also the names of investors and their credentials and source of
investment, guarantors, funding and other details,” said Muppalla Subba Rao,
A.P. Bar Council member and head of Samachara Hakku Vedika.
When
contacted, M.V.S. Kamesam, Director (operations) of KGLNG, said that they had
conducted public hearing on the directions of the Chief Minister and Principal
Secretary of Energy to the District Collector and the allegations on the
company and investors were false. He said that the present estimate of the
project cost was $442 million and they will start construction within three
months of getting environmental clearance from the MoEF.
LNG
Bharath Tolling Terminal
On the other
hand, the second private project is LNG Bharat Tolling Terminal which is going
to come up at Krishnapatnam Port, Nellore, to address the industrial needs of
Rayalaseema districts of the State, Tamil Nadu and also parts of Telangana. LNG
Bharat Limited terminal is promoted by Rajahmundry based KEI-RSOS Petroleum
& Energy Ltd group, jointly owned by Lieutenant Murthy Jasti of the River
Bay group of Rajahmundry and the KEI group owned by Anil, Shobana Kamineni of
the Apollo Hospitals family.
The chairman
of this tolling terminal Lieutenant Murthy is hopeful of vetting from the IDBI
Capital and also achieving financial closure within four months.
In addition,
he is expecting Chinese and Japanese investors who have approached the group
for equity participation in both the special purpose companies which
incidentally are in the sectors which permit 100% FDI in automatic route.
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