India scouts LNG supplies in Australia - Business - Business - smh.com.au

PETRONET LNG, India's first liquefied natural gas importer, is seeking additional supplies from planned projects in Australia in addition to the fuel it expects to buy from the Chevronled Gorgon venture.
Petronet may buy as much as 10 million tonnes a year of LNG from Australia within a decade, according to SC Sharma, chief commercial officer of Petronet.
Mr Sharma was attending the South East Asia Australia Offshore Conference in Darwin.
The extra LNG shipments could come from projects such as ConocoPhillips's proposed Darwin expansion, an enlarged North-West Shelf venture off Western Australia, and Woodside's planned Pluto and Browse ventures.
Petronet began importing LNG into India in January 2004 with shipments from Qatar's RasGas, with which it has a 25-year agreement to buy 7.5 million tonnes of LNG annually. It may conclude an agreement by the end of July to buy 2.5 million tonnes a year of Gorgon gas for the Kochi terminal, Petronet managing director P. Dasgupta said in May.
"We would like to sign the agreement with Gorgon as quickly as possible," Mr Sharma said. "We would love to get LNG sourced from any of these other new projects when any of them start. Australia can be one of the largest energy suppliers to India." Petronet is also looking to Oman, Nigeria and Malaysia for future LNG supplies, Mr Sharma said.
India's LNG consumption may rise from 6 to 7 million tonnes a year now to 30 million tonnes by 2013, driven by economic growth and increasing demand from power generation companies.
Rising prices for LNG are unlikely to crimp growth in demand in India and Indian domestic gas prices are set to match international market prices within two or three years, Mr Sharma said.
Exxon Mobil and Royal Dutch Shell own stakes in Chevron's Gorgon project. Shell and Chevron have already announced agreements to sell most of their share of Gorgon gas.
Bloomberg