Press Trust of India Posted online: Monday, September 19, 2005 at 1712 hours IST
New Delhi, September 19: Global oil and gas majors Shell and ConocoPhillips have offered to sell Australian liquefied natural gas (LNG) to India to meeting its growing energy needs, Petroleum Secretary S.C. Tripathi said on Monday.
"ConocoPhillips is selling LNG to South East Asia at a price that is not significantly higher than the price at which we have contracted LNG from Iran," Tripathi said at a seminar on Oil and Gas Exploration Opportunities in Australia.
New Delhi has contracted 5 million tonnes per annum of LNG from Iran for 25 years at a delivered price of 4.10 dollars per million British thermal unit (mBtu).
Iranian LNG is to arrive in 2009-10 and there was huge unmet demand, which Australia can fill, he said, but did not elaborate.
"Representatives of ConocoPhillips met me today. They were wanting to know the demand for natural gas in India and the current deficit," he said.
Describing talks at as 'exploratory', Tripathi said very preliminary discussions have been held and commercial negotiations would have to take place between companies.
The Petroleum Secretary said Indian companies were also in touch with Shell for import of LNG from Australia.
Both Shell and ConocoPhillips have LNG production facilities in Australia and are looking for markets. India, which has an unmet demand of 50 million standard cubic meters per day of natural gas (about 13 million tonnes of LNG), offered a viable market.
Tripathi called for partnership between Indian and Australian oil and gas companies for oil and gas exploration in both countries.
Australia has offered 29 offshore blocks for bidding for international oil firms to attract investment in exploration. Indian firms have been exorted to participate in the bidding round.
