* Facility will meet industrial demand through trucking
* Shell expects LNG demand in China to continue growth
* India shows potential as next growth market
By Jessica Jaganathan
SINGAPORE, March 9 (Reuters) - Royal Dutch Shell isplanning to build a truck loading facility at its Haziraliquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal on India's west coast as itlooks to meet demand from industrial users, a top companyofficial said on Friday.
The facility, which could be ready by next year, will beused to supply industrial demand through trucking in places thatcan't access supply from the grid, said Steve Hill, executivevice president at Shell Energy.
"It has a big potential growth ... in India because energysupply reliability is a big issue in India," he said at a mediabriefing in Singapore, referring to LNG being transported intrucks to industrial users.
"There hasn't been as much supply infrastructure in place,but some of the import terminals are now putting the truckloading facilities in place so that's opening up that option."
Shell Gas B.V, a unit of Royal Dutch Shell Plc, holds amajority stake in the Hazira LNG Terminal and Port in a venturewith a unit of France's Total SA.
LNG trucking works well for locations off-grid, with Chinaand India the two obvious markets, Hill said.
Gas hauled by trailers is seen growing to a tenth of China'stotal gas consumption of around 240 billion cubic metres (bcm)in 2017, from 5.6 percent in 2014, but is a newdevelopment in India.
CHINA AND INDIA DEMAND GROWTH
Shell expects LNG demand to rise again in China this year asthe world's second-largest importer of the super-chilled fuelextends a program to switch from coal to cleaner gas beyond thecapital Beijing to large industrial cities, Hill said.
"The underlying policy that's driving this is basicallycommunity heating or small in-city industrial users switching(the) boilers from coal to gas," he said. "This is structuraldemand conversion."
The full effect of China's drive to switch factories andmillions of homes from coal to gas to curb harmful emissionswill be felt this year, he added.
India had the potential to be the next biggest growth marketas it faced similar factors to China, Hill said.
"They are both countries with big populations, developingrapidly growing economies, (and) air quality challenges wheregas has low penetration in the energy mix," he said.
"It's harder to predict the timing in India, but ultimatelyI'm quite confident we'll see rapid growth in gas demand inIndia."(Reporting by Jessica Jaganathan; editing by Richard Pullin)
