The decision comes after UTC officials received overwhelmingly positive response following the trial run of electric buses between Dehradun and Mussoorie last year and between Nainital and Haldwani earlier this year. UTC general manager (administration) Deepak Jain told TOI that if everything goes as planned, the corporation will receive the electric and CNG buses very soon. “All the new buses will be operated under Public Private Partnership (PPP) model. An MoU will soon be inked with Indraprastha Gas Limited in New Delhi as the CNG buses are to ply between Dehradun and Delhi in the first phase,” Jain said. The official added that at least 30 of the total electric buses to be received by the UTC will ply in Dehradun district under the Smart City project and among these 30 buses, 22 will operate in the capital city. While CNG buses are expected to join the UTC fleet by this year’s end, the authorities will be floating tenders for electric buses next month. The buses will be bought with the funds provided by the Centre. Observers say that the move will save millions of rupees per month that is presently spent on fuels. UTC had added 300 new buses to its fleet. At present, 1,350 public diesel buses run across the state.Meanwhile, Vijay Vardhan Dandriyal, vice-president of Uttarakhand Roadways Mahasangh (Employees Association), expressed surprise on the announcement of UTC saying, “The UTC has not planned CNG centres and power stations for electric buses. The move is good but I would have been happier if this had come with proper planning.”

 https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/dehradun/ukhand-to-launch-electric-and-cng-bus-service/articleshowprint/71765716.cms

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The Public Enterprise Selection Board (PESB) picked Jain for the post of Chairman and Managing Director of GAIL, a maharatna PSU, after interviewing eight short-listed candidates, a notification from the headhunter said. Jain, 57, will have term till August 2022 once his appointment is ratified by the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC) headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The PESB notice said Jain was selected after interviewing eight shortlisted candidates, including Anjani Kumar Tiwari, Director (Finance), GAIL (India) Ltd and E S Ranganathan, Managing Director, IGL. Others interviewed by PESB on Friday included two IAS officers, Manoj Kumar, Additional Chief Secretary of Tripura, and Jyoti Kalash, Additional Chief Secretary of Nagaland. He will replace Bhuwan Chandra Tripathi, who was in July this year denied a third extension of service that would have taken him to his superannuation age. Director (Projects) A Karnatak is currently officiating as acting-Chairman of GAIL. Jain, who has much of his over three-decade long experience in projects, pipeline integrity management and marketing, was in June last year appointed Director (Business Development) of GAIL. His appointment will be vetted by ACC after anti-corruption agencies clear his name, sources said explaining the procedure. He is a Mechanical Engineering Graduate and MBA in Operations Management. Before being appointed as Director (Business Development), he was responsible for gas marketing activities in his role as Executive Director (Marketing-Gas). ‘Jain also spearheaded the installation and commissioning of over Rs 10,000 crore grassroots petrochemical complex at Lepetkata Assam, as Chief Operating Officer of Brahmaputra Cracker and Polymer Ltd, (BCPL) which has been one of the fastest projects ever implemented in the North East of its size and magnitude,’ according to GAIL’s annual report. PTI ANZ MR

https://in.news.yahoo.com/manoj-jain-selected-head-gail-135918802.html

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In that backdrop, when RIL announces its September quarter results on Friday, “any signs of decline in capex intensity should increase confidence in our view”, said analysts from HSBC Securities and Capital Markets (India) Pvt. Ltd. That apart, the sequential recovery in refining margins should help RIL’s earnings. For perspective, benchmark Singapore gross refining margins have averaged $6.5 a barrel for the September quarter, up from $3.5 a barrel in the June quarter. “A sharp recovery in refining margins, coupled with lower ethane and LNG prices, and higher petchem volumes, should partly offset weakness in benchmark chemical margins and deliver 7% qoq growth in standalone earnings,” HSBC analysts said in a report on 8 October. Separately, state-run oil marketing companies (OMCs) are expected to report a good set of numbers for the September quarter. OMCs include Bharat Petroleum Corp. Ltd (BPCL), Hindustan Petroleum Corp. Ltd (HPCL) and Indian Oil Corp. Ltd (IOC). Performance of these companies will get a boost from the rebound in refining margins. Further, auto fuel marketing margins have remained resilient. These two factors are likely to set off inventory and forex losses to some extent. Analysts from Kotak Institutional Equities expect BPCL and HPCL to report 20-23% quarter-on-quarter (q-o-q) increase in Ebitda (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization), despite accounting for ₹1,000-1,100 crore of inventory and forex losses. The broker expects IOC to report 20% q-o-q decline in Ebitda, impacted by the ₹3,300 crore in inventory and forex losses. IOC’s profitability is expected to be relatively weaker than its peers, HPCL and BPCL, primarily owing to higher inventory losses. Meanwhile, crude oil prices have dropped by about 18% in the September quarter from a year ago. This is likely to drag down profits of oil producers such as Oil and Natural Gas Corp. Ltd and Oil India Ltd, as price realization gets adversely affected. In keeping with the optimism in the broader markets and talks of BPCL’s privatization, shares of all these companies have run up after the corporate tax rate cuts. As such, September quarter results are not expected to fuel big jumps in share prices. “The stock prices, in our view, are unlikely to move on earnings but would be news flow dependent,” wrote analysts from JP Morgan India Pvt. Ltd in a report on 7 October. “For the broader state-owned enterprises space, how the government moves on the potential BPCL privatization would be an important driver for stocks. For Reliance, the key events that investors are focused on are the completion of various deleveraging deals,” added the analysts.

https://www.livemint.com/market/mark-to-market/will-oil-companies-september-quarter-numbers-fuel-investor-confidence-11571330172975.html

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The current gas price in India is $3.23 per MMBtu but the ceiling for gas from difficult fields is $8.43 per unit. “We can produce gas in Haynesville (Louisiana) at $2/MMBtu and it will land in India at around $6/MMBtu or less,” Tarek Souki, senior vice president for LNG, told ET. French LNG supplier Total, which is buying equity in Adani Gas, has also invested in Tellurian, giving the energy major a stake in a major supplier and a rapidly growing customer base of natural gas in India. Tellurian is developing a portfolio of natural gas production, LNG trading, and infrastructure that includes an LNG export facility and an associated pipeline. It recently signed an MoU with India’s Petronet LNG for sale of 5 MMTPA of LNG. The companies aim to finalise the contract by March after due diligence. Petronet’s MoU with Tellurian also envisages an 18% stake in the Driftwood project for a reported $2.5 billion. Petronet’s shares fell sharply after the announcement, while Tellurian’s shares soared last month. Souki said LNG landing in India below $6 from a project that has a life of 40 years was a strong value proposition. “Petronet will be our partner. So, I don’t know what else we can do to de-risk some of the issues that Indian markets have with price volatility,” Souki said. He said his company’s LNG supplies would be based on cost of production and would not be volatile like other suppliers who link the price of gas to international benchmarks. “The value proposition in the US for bringing LNG anywhere around the world is going to be the most competitive.” India’s biggest LNG supplier is Qatar, which has been shipping the super-cooled fuel to India for many years. Souki said his company’s cargoes will land at a more competitive and stable price despite the longer distance. “In the Qatar contract, you are exposed to Brent volatility in addition to the JKM (Japan/Korea Marker) market prices,” he said. Asked how Tellurium would supply cheaper gas, Souki said shipping was only a part of the total cost of LNG and the landed price would still be competitive. Further, shipping costs need not be very high, he said. “You can optimise some shipping. You can swap cargoes with different parts of the market.” Driftwood is among a dozen planned US LNG export projects, which analysts said will produce 150 MMTPA of LNG, making the US the world’s largest exporter of natural gas.

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/energy/oil-gas/tellurian-to-sell-lng-at-a-lower-rate-of-6-to-india/articleshow/71606866.cms

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The offer is for two cargoes loading from the Cove Point plant on Nov. 10-12 and Dec. 16-18. The sought cargo is for delivery to either the Dahej or Dabhol terminal in India on Nov. 20-23. The tender closes on Oct. 16, with validity expiring on the same day.

Source: Reuters/Indian Oil & Gas

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adding another bearish factor to an already oversupplied Asian market. The immediate impact on the region’s spot fundamentals and prices for this coming winter will likely be limited, however, given the relatively small volume that will be injected into the pipeline network over the first year. The construction of the northern section of the China-Russia gas pipeline eastern route was completed Wednesday (Oct 16), and PetroChina is expecting supplies into northern China to commence December 1, the state-owned major said Thursday. “The growth of China’s LNG imports is expected to be affected,” said a source with one of China’s major city gas suppliers, adding that they would consider lowering LNG imports into northern China once Russian pipeline gas is made available. Two Chinese end-users said they were contemplating reselling some of their winter LNG cargoes into the spot market if the pipeline starts up as planned. “You might see us in the market this winter, perhaps not to buy, but to sell,” said a Chinese LNG importer. The Power of Siberia is one of the most anticipated energy projects in Asia, with significant implications for China’s natural gas supply, LNG import demand in the region and Moscow’s energy strategy in Asia. The project will further enhance China’s supply security, and follows Beijing’s decision to merge gas pipelines of the three national oil companies to boost connectivity and ease infrastructure constraints.

Although pipeline imports from the Power of Siberia will certainly help slow Chinese LNG import growth in the medium term, they are unlikely to have a significant impact on Asian LNG spot markets this winter, according to S&P Global Platts Analytics. The initial flows will be relatively small and will only reach a select area in northern China, said Jeff Moore, Platts Asia LNG Analytics manager. “Mild weather, slowing activity in energy-intensive sectors or a lack of new regasification capacity would be more likely to negatively impact Chinese LNG imports this winter,” Moore said. Russian pipeline gas supplies in the first year of operations are forecast at 5 BCM/year, which would only account for around 1.6% of China’s total gas supply estimates of 316 BCM in 2019, according to Platts Analytics and China’s National Development and Reform Commission. Once it reaches full capacity of 38 BCM/year in 2022-23, it would account for around 9.5% of China’s total gas supply estimates of 402 BCM for 2022.

With a length of 1,067 km, the northern section will connect Russian gas supplies with customers in northeastern China and Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei regions, helping improve supply optionality and energy security in the country’s biggest winter demand center. “We have many city gas supply projects in the northeast, so the startup of the China-Russia gas pipeline is expected to ease our supply pressure in the winter peak season,” the source with the city gas supplier said. The full Russia-China gas pipeline is expected to be completed by 2022-23 and will have a length of 3,371 km in China, which will be divided into three sections — north, central and south. It will terminate in Shanghai, passing through nine provinces and autonomous regions, connecting with the Northeast pipeline network, Shaanxi-Beijing pipeline network and West-East pipeline network, according to PetroChina. PetroChina’s parent company China National Petroleum Corp signed a 30-year SPA with Russia’s Gazprom in 2014 to purchase gas from the Power of Siberia pipeline. The total gas supply is estimated to exceed 1 trillion cu m, with annual supplies expected to reach 10 Bcm/year by 2021 and 32 Bcm/year by 2022-23.

https://www.hellenicshippingnews.com/russia-pipe-gas-supplies-may-further-slow-chinas-lng-import-growth/

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In this regard, NCS Finland Oy, a transport and logistics company, and its subcontractor Pinecape Oy brought into use a Volvo FH LNG tractor unit in July. NCS Finland specializes in comprehensive road transports across Europe and carries more than 30,000 consignments each year. “LNG was the natural choice for us since it meets existing and future emissions targets,” said Jarmo Halonen, COO, NCS Finland. “Our customers are increasingly interested in cutting emissions in transport and require more environmentally friendly alternatives. We want to impact the environment through our own operations and the easiest way to do this is to change the transport fleet.”

https://www.ngvjournal.com/s1-news/c3-vehicles/finnish-transport-company-adds-natural-gas-volvo-truck-to-meet-climate-targets/[Edited]

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The company will operate an additional 156 CNG solid waste collection trucks serving customers throughout the country by the end of 2019, bringing the total number of vehicles running on alternative fuels to more than 3,100. With one of the largest vocational fleets in the country, Republic’s CNG fleet saves roughly 26 million gallons of diesel fuel annually. The new CNG trucks replace older, diesel vehicles, and help decrease air emissions and reduce unwanted noise. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), each new CNG truck deployed is equivalent to planting 600 mature trees each year. “The Republic Services team cares deeply about protecting the environment today, and for generations to come,” said Pete Keller, vice president of recycling and sustainability. “With an expanding fleet comprised of vehicles that produce significantly less GHG emissions, we’re making a difference throughout the communities we serve.” In July, Republic unveiled ambitious, long-term sustainability goals, which include a climate change target designed to reduce absolute Scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions by 35% by 2030. This emissions reduction target is approved by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi).

https://www.ngvjournal.com/s1-news/c3-vehicles/republic-services-will-surpass-3100-alternative-fuel-vehicles-by-the-end-of-2019/

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Five additional buses of this type are expected to arrive in November to complete, together with two other existing environmentally-friendly buses, a total of 20 clean technology vehicles for the Green Route. During the presentation of the new vehicles, the transport companies assured that with these vehicles, the modernization of the massive public transport begins, a task that is part of the commitment act signed by the Mayor’s Office of Barranquilla, the Metropolitan Area and the bus operators. The new 13.5-meter buses, which belong to the company Sodetrans SAS, filial of Alianza Sodis, were manufactured by Scania with Marcopolo body, have a capacity for 34 seated passengers and more than 50 standing. They are equipped with Euro 6 CNG clean technology engines, which reduce the emission of polluting gases and are environmentally-friendly. Juan Carlos Calderón Gómez, General Manager of Alianza Sodis, explained that an investment of more than $ 20 billion was made to complete the 20 new standard buses. “Our goal is to continue to modernize the fleet, in addition to the commitments with the City Hall in the process of integrating the transport of the city and its metropolitan area,” he said. Moreover, the manager of Gases del Caribe Ramón Dávila Martínez emphasized the importance of the commitment of local authorities to private sector initiatives that benefit citizens. “The cities of the Caribbean coast have an enormous opportunity to demand clean technologies in the renewal of the vehicles of their public and mass public transport systems, in order to acquire clean fleets and remove obsolete buses that generate high pollutant emissions,” he said. The mayor of Barranquilla Alejandro Char also commented that this is a very important step for mobility and the development of public transport in the city. “This is of great relevance for the city, it will allow us to better organize the public transport system, this is great news for everyone, it places us as a city at the forefront of these important issues,” express.

https://www.ngvjournal.com/s1-news/c3-vehicles/barranquilla-joins-other-colombian-green-cities-with-cng-powered-buses/

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The vehicles are equipped with a range extender fuel cell providing electric and thermal power of 10 kW, increasing the range of Renault MASTER Z.E. Hydrogen and Renault KANGOO Z.E substantially. Another advantage of hydrogen is that refueling takes just five to ten minutes. Expected in first-half 2020, Renault MASTER Z.E. Hydrogen will triple the range from 120 km to 350 km and will be available in van (two versions) and chassis cab (two versions). Equipped with two hydrogen tanks located under the car body, the vehicle will gain in versatility with no compromises on the load volume from 10,8 m3 to 20 m3 with a reasonable additional weight of 200 kg. From the end of 2019, Renault KANGOO Z.E. Hydrogen will boast the best real-life range of any electric van on the market at 370 km. With a load volume of 3.9 m3, despite a reasonable additional weight of 110 kg, this vehicle will be available in France at €48,300 ex. VAT (including the battery purchase and not including ecological bonuses). “These vehicles provide professionals with all the range they require for their long-distance journeys as well as record charging times. And the advantages do not stop there, as Renault MASTER Z.E. Hydrogen and Renault KANGOO Z.E. Hydrogen can run on decarbonized energy that respects the environment while offering all the comfort of electric driving,” said Denis Le Vot, Alliance SVP, Renault-Nissan LCV Business Unit. These hydrogen vehicles operate with a fuel cell, which combines hydrogen from its tanks with oxygen from the air to produce electricity. The first advantage: these vehicles meet the new environmental challenges of urban mobility. In addition, they offer increased autonomy, fast hydrogen refueling and easy maintenance. These advantages make hydrogen light commercial vehicles particularly suitable for the intensive needs and uses of professionals in large urban areas up to the periphery of cities: transport and logistics, urban deliveries and multi-technical services, municipal and local authority services, express and special mail.

https://www.ngvjournal.com/s1-news/c7-lng-h2-blends/renault-bets-on-hydrogen-technology-for-its-light-commercial-vehicle-range/

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This project is part of ENGIE’s strategy to promote renewable hydrogen to help its customers decarbonize their operations, and is aligned with Anglo American’s initiatives towards mining with zero climate impact. This collaboration between the two companies marks the first time a truck of this size and load capacity (300 metric tons) will be converted to run on hydrogen. ENGIE will provide the hydrogen generation solutions while Anglo American will develop the truck. The modifications to the existing truck include replacing the diesel tank with hydrogen tanks, and replacing the engine with hydrogen fuel cells and a battery pack. The hydrogen will be provided by the solar power generation capacity at the mining site.

First motion of the hydrogen powered truck is expected in 2020, followed by a testing and validation program at Anglo American’s Mogalakwena Platinum Group Metals mine in South Africa, after which additional trucks are expected to be rolled out at other Anglo American operations. The mining sector operates in challenging conditions and represents a high portion of the global energy consumption. Jointly developing the hydrogen-powered truck is the first step to achieving both companies’ common ambition to decarbonize the mining sector, one of the key sectors in the energy transition.

https://www.ngvjournal.com/s1-news/c7-lng-h2-blends/engie-forms-alliance-to-develop-first-hydrogen-powered-mining-haul-truck/[Edited]

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