State-owned refinery Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) and gas utility GAIL India’s initial agreement, to buy a 50 per cent stake in Adani Group’s Rs 5,000 crore Dhamra LNG project in Odisha, has expired, said Dharmendra Pradhan, oil minister. On September 21, 2016, IOC and GAIL had signed a ‘non-binding MoU’ with Adani Petroleum Terminal Pvt. Ltd. to take 39 per cent and 11 per cent stake respectively in the planned five million tonnes a year liquefied natural gas import terminal at Dhamra, the minister said in a written reply to the Lok Sabha.
The MoU was “subject to management approvals of IOC and GAIL and successful negotiation of the respective regasification agreements,” he said. “The MoU has expired on September 20, 2018.” He, however, did not give reasons for its expiry. Regasification is a process of converting liquefied natural gas (LNG) at −162 °C (−260 °F) temperature back to natural gas at atmospheric temperature.
