GAIL slots Rs 12000 cr investment in 11th Plan

GAIL (India) Limited is proposing to invest about Rs 12,000 crore during the next Plan period. This includes Rs 1,000-1,200 crore overseas investments.

Addressing reporters, S P Rao, chairman and managing director of GAIL, said as part of the national gas grid programme, GAIL would lay about 9,000-km pipeline across the country.

"We are currently laying a 1,500-km-long pipeline in the country with an investment of about Rs 3,300 crore. The work will be completed by the end of this fiscal, following which our gas-carrying capacity will increase to 145 MMSCMD (million metric standard cubic meters per day) from the existing 120 MMSCMD," he said.

The corporation will spend nearly Rs 18,000 crore on the remaining work in a phased manner. At present, he said, the generation capacity was being underutilised due to non-availability of gas from various fields.

"This is because of declining gas production from some ONGC wells. Once the gas production increases in the country, we will speed up our national gas grid works," he said.

He said the Indian gas market was expected to be 66 per cent bigger by 2009-10 and its dependence on imported LNG would increase from 22 per cent to 38 per cent of the total gas trade. Keeping this in mind, it was planning to import LNG and CNG in large quantities.

As part of the globalisation programme, GAIL has already taken equity participation in three retail gas companies in Egypt. The corporation has participating interest in two offshore blocks in Myanmar and one onland block in Oman.

It is pursuing business opportunities in regions such as South/Southeast Asia, West Asia, Russia and Central Asian Republics and African continents in the areas of exploration and production, gas transmission and petrochemicals, he said.

Besides, it plans to enter the LPG retail business. "We are producing about 1.2 million tonnes of LPG every year and are supplying it to oil companies in bulk quantities.