State-owned Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) has awarded a contract to build two football stadium-sized LNG storage tanks at its upcoming Ennore LNG import terminal in Tamil Nadu to Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) of Japan. The ordered LNG tanks are high-capacity storage tanks capable of holding 180,000m3 each and will be installed at an LNG terminal that Indian Oil will build near Ennore port, approximately 25 kilometers north of Chennai on the Bay of Bengal.
LNG imported to the terminal will be supplied as feedstock to fertilizer plants, and to utility company power generation plants for use as an alternative fuel. Plans also call for the use of LNG as city gas in urban areas in the future. The terminal will initially have the capacity to handle five million metric tonnes per annum (MMTPA), expanding to 15 MMTPA in the future.
IOC is India's flagship national oil company and handles refining, pipeline transportation and marketing of petroleum products, as well as production of downstream petrochemical products. The company employs about 34,000 people and accounts for approximately 31% of national refining capacity and 49% of its petroleum product market share.
