Dahej plant already running at 110% capacity: Prabhat Singh, Petronet LNG

One cannot write off the Qatar investment plan as good sense may prevail on both sides, Prabhat Singh, MD & CEO, Petronet LNG, tells ET Now.

Edited excerpts:

How are you utilising the capacities?

By and large we have been able to maintain the plant well and we have been running Dahej at 110% capacity. We have continued to have good profits.

How were the volumes for this quarter and what is your outlook going ahead?

This quarter we have maintained virtually the same volumes as it was in the last quarter. These volumes will continue in the same manner till the time our expansion comes up because today we are operating at the highest capacity. It may be unsafe to operate at a higher capacity than that.

What channel do you think Indian companies will adopt to purchase oil from Iran? There were talks of trading in exchange of rupee. Do you see that happening?

If there are sanctions, then less and less oil comes into the market. The price per barrel may go high and the price barrel goes high, then obviously the pricing since it is indexed to that would be higher. If the spot in the short-term prices become lesser than that, then we may have a stretch. Otherwise, till now whatever we have seen is that the long-term contracts are picked up by everybody. In H1, we have not faced any problem about not lifting of the cargos. I anticipate that it will continue like that.

We are also hearing that your investment plans in Qatar have slowed down because you could not reach an agreement relating to the molecular pricing. Are you calling it off?

No. The point is good sense may prevail in both the parties and we may end up actually doing a good deal because there is a strong case. I am looking at it from one perspective and Qatar is looking at it from a different perspective. If we both look at the same perspective, perhaps we may not conclude. But if they start seeing value in what we are proposing and we start seeing value in them and if we conclude, then Qatar is a natural corollary to India because they are the closest. We hardly spend 30-33 cents in transportation cost.