The Maroli project is part of Unocal's plans for the country with projects involving gross investments worth $3.5 billion by participating consortia, and through project financing over the next five years.

Company sources said Unocal's own investment will be a fraction of the amount, and will be in the region of 20-30 per cent of the equity component of these projects.

"We have received the letter of intent (LoI) from the Gujarat government for the port plus LNG terminal project at Maroli," Unocal Bharat president Arun Metre said.

The other bidders for the project included the Essar Torrent groups.

The Maroli project is one of the four ports with lNG facilities coming up along the Gujarat coast -- the others being Petronet's Dahej terminal, British Gas's Pipavav terminal, andthe Hazira project for which bids are being evaluated.

The port will handle all general cargo including coal, containers, and other dry cargo, besides LNG import facility, sources said, adding a regasification unit to vapourise LNG and a local pipeline network to distribute it afterwards make the associated infrastructure of the project. Consulting firm Wapcos is doing the engineering and commercial studies of the project, and will soon submit the detailed project report, they said.

The Unocal-Natelco combine will soon select the front end engineering design contractor, who will finalise the project's design based on the detailed project report.

The technology and equipment supplier will be selected later by international competitive bidding.

Earlier, Unocal Corporation president John Imle had said that the huge prospects of capacity addition in power generation made India a potential market for natural gas.

"Our main focus will be on natural gas projects. India is the largest and most importantfuture market for natural gas," Imle said.

India's enormous demand for natural gas needs to be met by a combination of domestic natural gas, imported pipeline gas and LNG imports, Imle said, adding Unocal plans to tap each of these options.

Unocal has also bid for the Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corporation's port plus LNG project at Ennore involving a 2.5-million-tonne per annum LNG import terminal along with a 1,800mw power project.

The company also has long-term plans to bring natural gas to the country through pipelines from production centres in Turkmenistan, Iran, Bangladesh and Myanmar, the sources said.