Petronet Says Invoked Force Majeure On 9 Cargoes

Petronet LNG Ltd., the country’s biggest gas importer, on Tuesday said it invoked the force majeure on nine cargoes after Covid-19 lockdown cut offtake by consumers.

Petronet imports natural gas in its liquid form from countries such as Qatar and Australia and pipes it to users such as power plants and fertiliser units after re-converting it into its gaseous state.

Petronet invoked the force majeure on eight liquefied natural gas cargoes of Qatar and one from Exxon for loading from March to May.

“Due to a nationwide lockdown imposed by the Government of India from the last week of March 2020, the offtake of regasified-LNG from the Dahej terminal (in Gujarat) was reduced.”

“This decline in throughput was due to partial/full shutdown of a number of industries, refineries, power plants, etc, which reduced their offtake of natural gas as the demand of their respective products decreased,” Petronet said in a regulatory filing.

Average gas send-out from the Dahej terminal fell to less than 60% of the capacity in April, down from over 88% in the previous month.

“Post first week of June when the lockdown was relaxed, the demand of RLNG has seen gradual recovery and since then, PLL's Dahej terminal is operating at its full capacity of 17.5 million tonnes per annum (63 million standard cubic meters per day),” it said.

Before Covid-19, average send-out during January-February was around 58 mmscmd (92% of the capacity) at the Dahej terminal and 3.57 mmscmd (20%) at 5 million tonnes a year at the Kochi terminal in Kerala.

"Owing to the Covid-19 pandemic and a consequent reduced RLNG demand during the lockdown period, PLL was constrained to invoke the force majeure for nine long-term cargoes with its suppliers and discussion on the same are ongoing," the company said without giving details.

During the said period, PLL also received requests under regasification contracts for deferment of third-party cargoes to subsequent months, it added.