Shares of Gail India were trading in the green and 2% higher on 5 January after the company announced signing a long-term LNG deal with Vitol for the supply of one million metric tonnes of LNG per annum.

As a part of the agreement, Vitol Asia Ltd will provide Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) from its worldwide LNG portfolio to the company on a pan-India basis. This will help the company expand its LNG portfolio and help bridge the country’s natural gas demand and supply imbalance.

Sandeep Kumar Gupta, Chairman and Managing Director of GAIL, said, “This long term LNG deal with Vitol by GAIL will augment its large Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) portfolio and will contribute to bridging India’s demand and supply gap of natural gas.”

The company owns and operates a network of over 16,000 km of natural gas pipelines across the nation and is currently working on the execution of multiple pipeline projects to enhance the network further.

Russell Hardy, CEO of Vitol, said, “We are pleased to build on the existing relationship between Vitol and GAIL and to conclude this Long Term LNG supply deal together. India is a significant and growing LNG market and we are excited to bring LNG supply from our global LNG portfolio to meet this rising natural gas demand in India.”

At 3:30 pm, the shares of Gail India closed 0.28% higher at Rs 163.60 on NSE.