Six shipping majors including Qatar Shipping, Essar Shipping, Mitsui and Shipping Corp of India have bid for supply of three liquefied natural gas (LNG) tankers to Petronet LNG Ltd's Dahej expansion project and greenfield Kochi project.Great Eastern Shipping Co Ltd bid for the tender for three LNG tankers with Malaysian International Shipping Corp while Qatar Shipping has tied up with Isle of Man-based Dorchester Maritime and Shipping Corp of India. Others in fray include Essar Shipping, consortium of TK Shipping and Great Eastern Shipping, consortium of Mitusi OSK Lines-NYK Line-K Line of Japan and SCI and Exmar-Varun-IOC combine, company sources said on the sidelines of the Petrotech conference.PLL, which already has one 138,000-cubic metre capacity ship ferrying LNG from Qatar to its Dahej terminal and a second similar tanker scheduled to start operating from April, needs two more LNG tankers of similar capacity for hauling additional five million tonnes gas to Dahej. For the 2.5 million tonnes-per-annum Kochi terminal, PLL wants a 152,000-to-165,000-cubic metres capacity ship.
