Gas production surpassed oil for the first time in 2009-10.
Natural gas from Reliance Industries’ prolific D6 field has generated savings worth thousands of crores of rupees for power and fertiliser companies — the main users of the gas — even as it continues to be at the centre of the dispute between the Ambani brothers.
Commercial production from the field in the Krishna Godavari (K-G) basin started on April 2 last year.
The gas-based power industry is estimated to have saved Rs 6,000 crore over the last year, while the government’s fertiliser subsidy bill is estimated to be lower by Rs 3,100 crore.
Users within the country could get gas from the D6 field, located off the Andhra cost, at a landed cost of $ 4.2 per million British thermal units (mBtu). This price was much lower than alternates like imported liquefied natural gas (LNG), the price of which touched over $20 per mbtu. It was, however, higher than the subsidised price at which the government sold gas to select customers.
| GAS IMPACT |
| * KG-D6 field savings: - Rs 6,000 cr in the fertiliser industry - Rs 3,000 cr in the power sector |
| * Power and fertiliser sectors are the largest users of gas |
| * Domestic natural gas has replaced naphtha and imported LNG |
NTPC, the country's largest power producer, could reduce its pricey LNG imports as domestic gas became available. The power sector, the biggest consumer of K-G gas, was sold about 18 mscmd of gas, used across 4,745 Mw of power capacity.
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According to industry experts, the cost of generating power from naphtha, assuming a naphtha price of $10 per mBtu, would be Rs 3.97 per unit, while the cost of generation from KG-D6 gas assuming a delivered price of $6 per mBtu would be Rs 2.50 a unit. “Depending on the current price of naptha (which is an alternative feedstock), the power sector is estimated to have saved about Rs 6,000 crore while using gas as feedstock,” said Rakesh Jain general manager (energy division) at Feedback Ventures.
These savings have gone to the pocket of the consumer, according to Jain, since most producers have agreements with the state power utilities to simply pass on the cost of fuel to the consumers.
The average saving to a household in Andhra Pradesh, a state which houses some of the plants to which the D6 gas has been allocated, would be as much as Rs 300 per month, according to industry experts.
This is assuming an annual power consumption of 2,448 kilowatt hour.
The fertiliser sector also benefitted, as it switched to gas.
“It has been a very good experience. The supplies have been stable, leading to smooth operations, and we did not use any naphtha (as fuel) in the past one year. The subsidy saving to government from our plant alone is around Rs 100 crore,” said Kapil Mehan, executive director, Tata Chemicals.
The company is using 0.88 million standard cubic metres a day (mscmd) of K-G gas at its fertiliser plant in Babrala (Uttar Pradesh). The total gas supply to fertiliser sector during 2009-10 was 12.24 mscmd, which translated to a production of 6.10 million tonne of urea.
The D6 field is currently producing 60 mscmd of gas.
The government, through its gas utilisation policy, has made allocations to various priority sectors like power, fertiliser, steel, city gas, refineries, petrochemicals, LPG and captive power.
The power sector has been allocated 31.165 mscmd of gas on a firm basis and another 12 mscmd of gas on fallback basis. The fertiliser sector has been given firm allocation of 15.508 mscmd, refineries have been given 5 mscmd of firm allocation and 6 mscmd of fallback allocation and the steel sector has been given 4.19 mscmd firm allocations.
A fallback allocation implies that the sector will get gas if the firm allocation of other sectors is not fully consumed due to some reason.