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Gujarat Floods: Diamond industry hit hard

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Kamlesh Trivedi Ahmedabad
Last Updated : Jan 28 2013 | 6:44 PM IST
 Updated at 1920 hrs: The Indian diamond export may be hit hard as nearly 90% of Surat city, which cut and polished nearly 90% of Rs 64,000 crore diamonds India exported, is under water.

Bakul Mehta, chairman of Gems & Jewellery Export Promotion Council, said 55% of $1 billion monthly diamond exports, which comes from Surat, has been lost completely.

Gas supply situation continues to remain bleak as category one industry on the HVJ line is being supplied only 3.5 mmscmd of leftover gas from the pipeline. Petronet LNG chairman told Business Standard it is scouting for LNG spot cargoes overseas.
 
With National Highway No 8 near Surat cut-off, a large number of pharma and pesticide companies with manufacturing units located near Ankleshwer near Bharuch in South Gujarat have lost touch with Mumbai, Maharashtra and rest of country. If the situation continues for 24 more hours, pharma and pesticide companies are expected to face trouble in sending finished goods and procuring raw material from other centres.

 Updated at 1700 hrs: Floods in Gujarat continued to disrupt half of India's natural gas production for the second day today threatening power generation in the north and CNG supplies to automobiles in the national capital.

Oil and Natural Gas Corporation's South Bassein and B-55 fields in Mumbai offshore remained shut for the second day while the ONGC-Reliance-British Gas operated Panna/Mukta and Tapti fields did not produce any gas and forced to cut oil production by 20,000 barrels per day.

Over 40 million standard cubic meters per day of gas from these fields was fed mainly for power and fertiliser plants and CNG operations in Delhi. "The situation continues to remain grim. We don't see operations resuming in the next couple of days," a company official said.

ONGC's Hazira gas processing complex, near water-marooned Surat, was flooded on August 7-8 night forcing the company to resort to an emergency shutdown of the facility which received gas from its Bassein, B-55 and Panna/Mukta and Tapti fields in Mumbai offshore, company chairman and managing director R S Sharma told PTI here. The Hazira complex continues to remain under 4-5 feet water.

The non-availability of gas has partially affected GAIL's Hazira-Vijaipur-Jagdishpur (HVJ) pipeline. The company is rationing the 18 mmscmd gas available from LNG imported by Petronet.

Power, fertiliser and transport sector is being given top priority, a company official said.

 

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First Published: Aug 09 2006 | 7:52 PM IST

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