The onus of developing the project from scratch through financing the venture to operating the terminal and regassification will rest with the successful private bidder, sources closed to the developments said.

Petronet LNG Kochi Terminal will be the first gas storage and regassification terminal in the country to be developed by the private sector on a BOOT basis.

Informed sources told The Financial Express that the parent company had invited `Request for Qualification' tenders from interested parties world over to participate in the bid a couple of weeks back. The company would soon short-list the name of those companies who could participate in the pre-qualification bid for the venture. A number of global majors and Indian petroleum companies have evinced keen interest in developing the project, it is learnt.

According to sources, Petronet would finalise the operating period for the private promoter only after the bidders' project reports are examined and claims verified. "As of now, there is no tentative time-frame regarding how long the private party operate the project", the source said.

Under the Petronet plan, the private promoter should shoulder all the responsibilities from building the project from scratch including raising the necessary funds for developing the project. The project, with an annual capacity of 2.5 million tonnes, is initially estimated to cost Rs 1,800 crore. "The responsibilities with the private developer ranges from building the project, manning it, storing LNG, operating the project and regassification till the marketing stage. The developer will also have to tie-up funds for the venture", the source said.

Petronet has recently roped in Gas Authority of India Ltd (GAIL) and Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) as distributors of gas from the terminal.

Gail will be investing close to Rs 1,500 crore for laying two separate pipelines - Kochi-Mangalore and Kochi-Kayamkulam covering nearly 800 kms - to evacuate gas from the terminal. A slew of Kerala-based companies including the public sector FACT, BKPL, Sisian Energy and NTPC power station at Kayamkulam have evinced interest in picking up gas from the Kochi terminal. Some of these companies have already signed MoU with Petronet for lifting gas from the venture.

Petronet Kochi has got most of the necessary clearances from both the Centre and state governments for the project. The only major hurdle left behind is the green signal from the Ministry of Environment. The company had also completed the pre-development work on the land for setting up the proposed project off the cost Kochi. The land is being leased out from the Cochin Port trust on a long term basis.