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NEW DELHI, April 28 (Reuters) - India's Hazira LNG Ltd willexpand the capacity of its liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminalon the west coast by 50 percent to 7.5 million tonnes per annum(mtpa) in the fiscal year to March 2017, a government panelreport said.
Royal Dutch Shell owns through its unit Shell Gas a74 percent stake in Hazira LNG, while Total Gaz ElectriciteFrance, a unit of France's Total, holds the remainder.
India is expanding the capacity of its gas importfacilities, part of efforts to increase the share of cleanerfuel in its energy mix to improve air quality.
India currently has infrastructure to annually import andregassify 25 million tonnes of the super-cooled fuel and thecapacity of the existing facilities is expected to rise to 41 mtpa in 2016/17.
The report said that new terminals with capacities of up to27 mtpa were at various stages of planning on both the easternand western coasts of India.
"The increase in (Hazira LNG) capacity from 5 million to 7.5million tonnes a year will become available at the end of year2016/17," the report said.
Shell did not respond to a request for comment.
With a 26 percent stake, Shell is also part of a consortiumbuilding Kakinada LNG on the east coast.
In the current fiscal year India's gas deficit is expectedto widen to 300 million standard cubic metres a day (mscmd) from152 mscmd in 2012/13, the report said.
India's local gas production currently falls far short ofwhat was planned, due mainly to a significant decline in theoutput of Reliance Industries Ltd -operated KG-D6 blockon the east coast.
Reliance and partner BP have blamed geologicalcomplexities for the fall in output, but the oil regulatorbelieves they failed to drill enough wells.
Falling output had already prompted the government todisallow about $2.4 billion in cost recovery to Reliance up to2013/14, leading to arbitration proceedings over the issue. (Reporting by Nidhi Verma; Editing by Gareth Jones)
