ECONOMYNEXT – An agreement to supply liquefied natural gas to a power plant run by Sri Lanka’s LTL Holdings will be effective for 5 years and will be extended by mutual agreement, according to a Bombay stock exchange filing by Petronet India Limited.
The LNG will be loaded from Petronet’s Kochin terminal and brought by ship to Sri Lanka and taken overland to the 350 Megawatt ‘Sobadanavi’ combined cycle power plant built by LTL Holdings in Kerawalapitiya near Colombo.
The ISO Containers will be unloaded at Colombo Port and stored in a designated storage area, Sri Lanka’s Energy Ministry said. The containers will then be transported to a storage and regasification terminal. The regasified LNG will be delivered to the power plant through a pipeline.
The proposal is an interim solution to start LNG for power generation in Sri Lanka on initiation by Government of Sri Lanka and the Government of India, the island’s Energy Ministry said.
Sri Lanka’s Ceylon Electricity Board called public tenders for a build operate own floating LNG terminal.
But tender was abandoned after a controversial unsolicited deal was announced with a company called New Fortress mid-way through the process on a take-or-pay basis, which critics say would have led to high costs as the CEB was compelled to pay for fuel that it did not use to a committed purchase volumes.
It is not clear how the fuel will be procured and priced to supply to Sri Lanka.
LTL’s new combined cycle plant can run on both liquid fuel and LNG and is expectd to be fully . (Colombo/Aug21/2024)