Essar Steel India sought a liquefied natural gas (LNG) cargo on an online trading platform this week, three industry sources said on Thursday.

The company, a unit of Indian commodity conglomerate Essar Group, was seeking a cargo on a delivered ex-ship (DES) basis for delivery into Dahej over December 28-29, the sources said.

It sought a cargo through LNG trading marketplace Global LNG Exchange (GLX) on Wednesday but did not attract any offers, one of the sources said.

Essar Steel typically buys natural gas from Gail India in the domestic market and sometimes buys LNG in the spot market, a second source added.

An Essar spokesman said that "tenders were floated but no trade (took) place".

Essar Steel's mill in the western state of Gujarat is currently operating at 6.5 million tonnes a year because of constraints in iron ore supply and shortages of natural gas used to run its furnace.

Essar Steel India agreed on October 25 to pay 54389 crore rupees ($7.4 billion) to settle creditor claims and exit from bankruptcy.

The company's creditors a day later approved a joint offer by ArcelorMittal SA and Japan's Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corp for Essar Steel.