GAIL revealed the signing of the charter deal for one Shell LNG carrier via its social media on August 29.
The deal was signed by Satyabrata Bairagi, GAIL’s executive director for shipping and international LNG, and Richard Dickins, LNG freight trading team leader at Shell LNG marketing and trading, on August 27 in New Delhi.
“This is yet another milestone in the expansion of GAIL’s shipping fleet,” GAIL said.
The company did not provide the name of the vessel or any other details regarding the charter deal.
LNG Prime invited Shell to comment on the contract.
Shell manages a large fleet of LNG carriers.
Back in 2021, Shell Tankers (Singapore), a unit of Shell, announced charter deals, for in total 24 174,000-cbm LNG carriers with several owners.
Shell probably sub-chartered one of its 174,000-cbm LNG carriers to GAIL.
Earlier this year, LNG carrier operator CoolCo has entered into a 14-year charter deal with GAIL for one of the company’s two newbuild LNG carriers currently under construction in South Korea.
CoolCo will deliver the 174,000-cbm, Kool Panther, to state-owned GAIL in the Gulf of Mexico, with the time charter starting in early 2025.
The expected charter rate for this deal could be in the “low $90,000” range per day, based on CoolCo’s backlog increase.
GAIL is an end user for LNG and sells regasified LNG to customers in the fertilizer, city grid, power, refinery, and petrochem sectors, amongst others in India.
The firm owns and operates a network of over 16,000 km of natural gas pipelines in India.
It holds a stake in India’s largest LNG importer, Petronet LNG, and the company buys volumes under long-term LNG deals, including from the US and Qatar.
