Decision on Ennore plant soon

Chennai, Dec. 7: The fate of the $750 million liquefied natural gas (LNG) import terminal at Ennore will be decided in another two to three months.

Mr B.M. Bansal, the IOC director (business development) said that the company in another two to three months would take a decision on whether the Ennore LNG terminal project should be revived or not.

In 2007, IOC put on hold the 2.5 million tonnes per annum LNG import-cum regassification terminal, after a huge gas find off the east coast made the project economically unviable. The terminal was expected to cost around Rs 2,000 crore.

Not only that gas from discoveries that were made by Reliance Industries, Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) and Gujarat State Petroleum Corp (GSPC) meet the demands of the region, leaving little scope for Ennore.

Mr Bansal has now said that internal decisions would be taken shortly after which a detailed feasibility report regarding the project would be prepared.

Earlier, when this project was put on hold, the state-run gas utility GAIL India Ltd too wanted to be part of the project.

The petroleum ministry had then decided that IOC and its subsidiary Chennai Petroleum Corp Ltd (CPCL) would be the lead promoters.