A second vessel carrying liquified petroleum gas from the Persian Gulf reached India's west coast early on Tuesday after safely transiting the troubled Strait of Hormuz, offering some relief amid growing shortages of the cooking fuel that 333 million Indian households rely on.
The state-owned, medium-range carrier, MT Nanda Devi, steamed into an offshore anchorage point with 46,500 tonnes of LPG around 2 am, where its crew were immediately offered health checks and refreshments.
The cargo is enough to fill 3.3 million 14.2 kg cylinders of LPG. Daily bookings on Monday were around 7 million.
The vessel was chartered by the Indian Oil Corp and is one of the two LPG tankers that was permitted by Iran to transit the Strait of Hormuz.
Ship-to-ship transfer helped save time and was done as a routine practice, said Deendayal port chairman Sushil Kumar Singh.
India imports 60-65% of its LPG requirement and has asked domestic refiners to make more LPG following the West Asian crisis.
