India's Petronet to sign LNG deal with Qatar for supplies past 2028 -sources

QUITOL, India (Reuters) -India's Petronet LNG will sign a deal on Tuesday with Qatar to extend its long-term liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports from the country to beyond 2028, said three sources with knowledge of the matter.

Under the existing deal that expires in 2028, Petronet LNG imports 7.5 million metric tons per year of LNG from Qatar priced at a slope of 12.67% of the current Brent crude oil futures prices and a fixed charge of 52 cents per million British thermal units (mmBtu).

In the renewed deal, the fixed charge for Qatari LNG will not be there, one of the sources said.

Petronet is also expected to sign a separate deal for LNG supplies on a delivered basis, all three of the sources said.

Reuters reported last month that Qatar Energy could sign a long-term LNG deal offering destination-flexible cargoes and lower pricing to Indian buyers.

Qatar, the world's top LNG exporter, aims to expand its liquefaction capacity to 126 million tons per year by 2027 from 77 million tons per year and has signed long-term deals with European majors Shell, TotalEnergies and ENI.

India wants to raise the share of natural gas in its energy mix to 15% by 2030, up from 6.2% currently, as part of an effort to cut emissions.

(Reporting by Nidhi Verma; Writing by Florence Tan; Editing by Tom Hogue and Christian Schmollinger)

By Nidhi Verma