India plans gas-fired fertiliser plant in Gulf

New Delhi: India sought an additional 5 mn tonne of liquefied natural gas from Qatar to meet its growing energy needs and has proposed to set up a gas-fired fertiliser plant in the Gulf nation to meets its urea needs.

Petroleum Minister Murli Deora, who arrived here this morning to give the energy perspective to talks that the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh-led high level delegation was having with Qatari leadership for enhancing bilateral cooperation, met Qatar's Deputy Prime Minister and Energy and Industry Minister Abdullah bin Hamad al Attiyah.

'We had an excellent one-hour meeting. Attiyah is a great friend of India and promised to look into our LNG needs,' Deora told.

Deora told Attiyah that the nation was short of 5-7.5 Mt a year of energy and wanted Qatar to bridge most of it.

Singh, before reaching Doha on the second leg of his three-day maiden visit to the Gulf region, had described Qatar as India's most reliable energy partner.

India currently buys 5 mn tonne a year of LNG from RasGas of Qatar under a 25-year contract. The ex-ship price of $ 2.53 per mn British thermal unit (mmBtu) is considered a 'steal' in current times of LNG prices breaching $ 20 per mmBtu.

When other nations sought review of gas price when crude oil prices spiked, Qatar stood ground and also came to New Delhi's rescue when it agreed to supply 1.5 mn tons of more LNG on a short-term contract to restart the beleaguered Dabhol power plant in Maharasthra.