India negotiates resumption of LNG supply from Russia

Some agreed imports have not been shipped since May due to the Russian-Ukrainian conflict

India is currently in talks with Russia to resume gas supplies under the long-term import deal between Russian energy giant Gazprom and India’s state-controlled GAIL, according to GAIL President Manoj Jain quoted by Reuters.

GAIL, the country’s largest gas distributor and pipeline operator, has been unable to receive previously agreed imports since May and has been forced to cut deliveries to customers as a result.

“There are immediate issues that we are trying to address both at the corporate level and also at G2G. [government to government] level, » he said at an annual meeting of shareholders on Friday.

Jain pointed out that volumes under the deal with Gazprom, which represent about a fifth of GAIL’s overall overseas gas portfolio of 14 million tonnes per year, have been affected by the Russian-Ukrainian conflict.

“So overall it doesn’t affect us significantly. The only effect is to the extent of 10 to 15%”, the chief executive said, adding that adding domestic gas reduced the impact on local supply to around 7-8%.

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GAIL signed a 20-year contract with Gazprom in 2012. Under the terms of the contract, the company was to buy an average of 2.5 million tonnes of LNG, liquefied natural gas, per year. Supplies under the contract began in 2018.

Gazprom Marketing Singapore (GMTS) had signed the agreement on behalf of Gazprom. However, GMTS was a unit of Gazprom Germania and was seized by Berlin as part of Western sanctions against the Russian military operation in Ukraine.

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