The Bharat Petroleum Corporation (BPCL) has proposed to make an investment of Rs 1,500-1,700 crore in building a floating liquefied natural gas (LNG) import terminal at Krishnapatnam in Andhra Pradesh by 2022.

The company will hold 74 percent interest in the project while the remaining 26 percent will be with Petronet LNG. Initially it will be a one million tpa floating storage regasification unit (FSRU) based terminal which can be scaled up to three million tonne or five million tonne in future.

Krishnapatnam will be the sixth LNG terminal to be announced on the coast. The Adani Group is building a five million tonne facility at Dhamra in Odisha. GAIL (India) and the Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) have also booked capacity on the Dhamra terminal.

IOC recently commissioned a five million tpa import facility at Ennore. Apart from this, BPCL is transferring its gas business to a new subsidiary, Bharat Gas Resources (BGRL). The company on its own or in a joint venture (JV) with other companies now has CGD licence for 37 geographical areas (GAs).

Also, BGRL has entered into a long-term sales and purchase agreement to buy one million tpa of LNG from Mozambique for 15 years.