Petronet CEO bags France's second highest civilian honour

French president, Jacques Chirac, has conferred the country's second highest civilian honour, 'Knight of the Order of Merit', Suresh Mathur, CEO and managing director of Petronet LNG Ltd.

The legion of honour was given to Mathur in recognition of his "leadership and professional acumen" and for the role in development of India's first LNG import terminal at Dahej in Gujarat. The award was given to Mathur by Dominique Girard, the Ambassador of France in India, company officials said.

Mathur is the founding head of Petronet LNG that built a 5 million tonne per annum capacity LNG import and regassification terminal at Dahej. Petronet imports natural gas in liquefied form in ships from Qatar and regassifies it before selling to customers.

State refiners, Indian Oil Corp and Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd, exploration firm ONGC and gas utility, GAIL (India) Ltd hold 12.5 per cent each in Petronet LNG, while Gaz de France, the project consultant, has 10 per cent stake. Mathur is also credited with negotiating the world's lowest price of LNG.