(EnergyAsia, November 16 2011, Wednesday) — Europe’s GDF SUEZ has signed an agreement to sell India’s Petronet LNG Limited nine cargoes of liquefied natural gas (LNG) totalling 600,000 tons for 2012.

The French-Belgian utilities company, which owns a 10% stake in Petronet, said it will source the LNG from its global portfolio and deliver the cargoes to Petronet’s Dahej LNG terminal in Gujarat state in India.

A. K. Balyan, Petronet LNG’s managing director, said the cargoes will help meet India’s energy demand as the country is facing lower domestic gas production.
Jean-Marie Dauger, GDF SUEZ’s executive vice-president overseeing its global gas and LNG, said:

“We are very pleased to extend our close co-operation with Petronet through this agreement. GDF SUEZ considers Asia and especially India as a core development region for its LNG business, with strong growth prospects and new supply potential.”

Petronet, India’s largest LNG importer, owns and operates the country’s main LNG terminal in Dahej. The company is building a second import terminal in Kochi in Kerala state with a five-million-ton capacity to be completed by the end of 2012.

Since September 2010, GDF SUEZ has concluded four LNG sales agreements with major energy players in Asia. Between 2010 and 2016, the company said it will deliver up to 136 cargoes of about 8.2 million tons to Kogas, CNOOC, Petronas and Petronet.

GDF SUEZ recently opened a trading office in Singapore to increase its trading and supply capabilities in the Asia Pacific region. It has the capacity to source a total of 16.5 million tons of LNG a year from Algeria, Egypt, Nigeria, Norway, Trinidad and Tobago and Yemen.

As a world leading LNG player, the company operates a fleet of 17 LNG carriers and has a significant presence in regasification terminals around the world. It is developing Bonaparte as an integrated project to build a two-million-ton floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) unit in Australia.