State-run gas company GAIL (India) Ltd has signed a time-swap deal with Swiss trader Gunvor to sell some of its U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG).
The Indian firm tries to ease the burden of its costly foreign LNG supplies.
It is the first time-swap agreement by GAIL, which is trying to juggle its LNG portfolio to cut costs for price-sensitive Indian customers after a sharp fall in Asian spot prices made its US gas unattractive.
The deal equates to around 5 percent of India's 2015/16 LNG imports and will support a government push to promote use of the cleaner fuel in fertiliser and the power sector.
This is so even as India's local gas production is falling.
Under the agreement, Gunvor will supply 15 cargoes or about 0.8 million tonnes of LNG to GAIL on India's west cost between April and December this year in oil-linked prices on a delivered basis in India.
In return GAIL will sell 10 cargoes or about 0.6 million tonnes next year from Sabine Pass on the U.S. Gulf coast in 2018 at a premium to its pricing formula on a free-on-board (FOB) basis.
The deal, priced at about a 12 percent slope to Brent, means GAIL could get gas from Gunvor at $6.50-$7.00 per million British thermal units (mBtu).
This is competitive with Asian spot prices and much cheaper than the cost of shipping its own U.S. gas to India.
Spot deals (in India) for April deliveries getting finalised at slightly more than $6.50 (mBtu) so GAIL's deal with Gunvor is at a very competitive rates.
GAIL is saddled with long-term contracts to take expensive US gas after embarking on a buying spree between 2011 and 2013 when the fuel was scarce and prices kept rising.
LNG booked by GAIL under a long term deal with Cheniere Energy, which owns the Sabine Pass Liquefaction terminal, will cost 115 percent of Henry Hub prices plus a fixed cost of $3 per mBtu.
At current prices, this equates to a cost of about $8.50 per mBtu on a delivered basis to India.
New Delhi wants to lift the share of cleaner-burning gas in its energy mix to 15 percent in the next three years from about 6.5 percent at present.
GAIL is also in talks with Russia's Gazprom to delay and renegotiate a 20-year gas purchase deal undercut by low spot prices.
GAIL: Know More- Stands for Gas Authority of India Limited
- It is the largest state-owned natural gas processing and distribution company in India.
- Headquarters: New Delhi
- CEO: Sh B. C. Tripathi (1 Aug 2009)
- Founded: 1984
- Parent organization: United Nations
