Ruias-owned Essar Ports is looking to invest around $500 million or over Rs 2,500 crore to set up one liquefied natural gas (lNG) terminal each on the western and eastern coasts in the next 18 months, a top company official said.
“Total investment in the first phase could be in the region of about $500 million,” Rajiv Agarwal, managing director and chief executive of Essar Ports, told PTI at a company-run facility here.
He said the company is looking at a cluster of small ports which will be closer to potential customers, adding that Hazira and Salaya, where it already operates ports, could be the sites where it can set up the lNG terminals.
“We are already working on it (lNG terminals) and in the next one to one and half years, we should have something started. One on west coast and one east coast could come within that period,” Agarwal said. Typically, each terminal will cost between $150-300 million, depending on the amount of work to be carried out, he said, adding that the capacity will range between 2.5-5 million tonnes.