Chubu Electric Power of Japan has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with GAIL of India to consider collaboration in joint LNG procurement and operations. Besides, the two companies will also seek to collaborate on shipping optimization.

“Chubu and GAIL are large LNG importers having considerable synergy between their LNG business profiles. It is assessed that with GAIL joining hands with Chubu for jointly pursuing LNG procurement and other allied business opportunities, such a collaboration shall augment GAIL’s efforts to aggressively source LNG volumes on competitive terms and would be a win-win proposition for both companies,” GAIL said in a statement.

“This MoU with Chubu is yet another effort by GAIL towards bridging the gap in demand supply of natural gas in the Indian market. This is in addition to other initiatives of GAIL towards LNG sourcing, creating LNG regasification infrastructure, reserving liquefaction tolling capacity in overseas projects and augmenting transmission capacity significantly over the next few years. GAIL will continue to make efforts to tie-up affordable LNG in its portfolio to meet the rapidly growing energy demand of the Indian market,” the company added.