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.