Petronet-LNG's commercial director quits

Petronet-LNG's commercial director quits
PRESS TRUST OF INDIA

NOV 5: Petronet LNG (PLL), a billion dollar joint venture of four national oil companies for importing liquid gas from Qatar, has received yet another setback with its director commercial R P Sharma quitting.

Sharma's exit comes days before PLL was to award the $ 650 million contract for construction of port facilities at Dahej (Gujarat) for importing five million tonnes of liquified natural gas annually from the year 2003.

When contacted, Sharma told PTI that "I was not feeling comfortable under the present setup," but declined to elaborate.

Sharma had desired to leave the JV, which would invest $ one billion for LNG import facilities at Dahej and Kochi, a year ago but was persuaded against this by the then Petroleum Secretary Dr S Narayan.

PLL board, chaired by Petroleum Secretary, accepted the resignation of Sharma on November 1 barely hours before Narayan was shifted to Finance Ministry as Revenue Secretary.

During this meeting promoter oil companies had ejected National Thermal Power Corporation from the JV by deciding to take its 10 per cent equity among themselves.

Sharma, who came on deputation from promoter Gas Authority of India (GAIL), was responsbile for finalising the 25-year gas purchase agreement from RasGas, a state-owned company of Qatar.

Asked if he was joining proposed LNG/Gas venture of Reliance, Sharma would neither confirm nor deny the move.

Petroleum Minister Ram Naik, however, told PTI that Petronet JV would complete the LNG projects as scheduled despite the exit of NTPC.

These developments in PLL, with authorised capital of Rs 1,200 crore, came within a fortnight of government's assurance to visiting Energy Minister of Qatar that JV would go ahead with import of LNG as per the schedule.

Qatar had insisted on guarantee for completion of the project from the promoting companies GAIL, Indian Oil, Oil and Natural Gas Croporation and Bharat Petroleum.

Incidently, NTPC is a 26 per cent equity partner in the rival private sector LNG import project at Pipavav in Gujarat.

Consequent to the decision to ease out NTPC the four promoter oil PSUs would raise their stake in the JV, which would import 7.5 million tonnes of LNG annually at Dahej (Gujarat) and Cochin (Kerala), to 12.5 per cent each.