India’s Mumbai Port Trust (MPT) is gearing up to receive offers within days for a long-planned floating storage and regasification unit.
A spokesman told TradeWinds that potential bidders on the LNG import development had asked for an extension to the bidding deadline.
He said there had been delays due to the Covid-19 pandemic but the deadline is now 24 July.
He explained the project requires the successful bidder to deliver the LNG, construct the receiving facility, supply the FSRU and sell the gas to downstream customers.
LNG market players watching the project have floated the names of several prospective bidders. But those close to MPT name IMC working in partnership with Hoegh LNG, and the diversified engineering, construction, finance and real estate group Shapoorji Pallonji as two of the most likely contenders.
MPT’s spokesman said companies have been given the option of providing an FSRU newbuilding, an existing LNG carrier that has been converted into a regas unit or a chartered-in vessel.
He said MPT wants to kick off using a unit with capacity to handle 2.5 million tonnes per annum of LNG in a first phase before expanding this to 5 mtpa.
MPT estimates that it will take more than three years to put the project into operation.
The FSRU project has been on the boil for several years.
Four groups offered in on plans to install a 5-mtpa FSRU in 2015, including one of the prospective parties named for this upcoming process.
The low price and abundant supply of LNG has encouraged developers to push ahead with a wave of new FSRU projects and fire up dormant or stalled ones worldwide, with service companies for regas schemes reporting a flood of fresh enquiries.
But observers said MPT’s requirement for would-be developers to handle the entire supply process, including the downstream gas sales, may put off some of the traditional FSRU bidders.
