ONGC gas plant remains shut

The gas situation in flood-hit Surat remained unchanged today. The Hazira based gas processing station of ONGC was unable to resume operations today due to waterlogging at the plant site.

According to ONGC, the situation was reviewed today by a high-level ONGC team headed by Director (technology and field services) UN Bose.

ONGC says the plant will be restarted after waters recede. Operational teams of ONGC are all geared up to begin restoration and start production.

ONGC has installed an INMARSAT terminal for communication and has supplied portable generators for the site.

The Hazira gas processing plant receives around 40.5 million metric standard cubic meters per day from ONGC's offshore Bassein field. It processes this to produce 1,650 metric tonnes (MT) of LPG, 3,350 MT of aromatic naphtha, 417 MT of superior kerosene oil (SKO) and 48 MT of high speed diesel (HSD).

Most of the industrial units "" mainly power, petrochemicals and fertiliser units "" drawing gas from the Hazira-Vuijaypur-Jagdishpur pipeline were unable to operate consecutively on the third day since the flood affected the ONGC gas processing station.

Among the petrochemical projects, the Vadodara-based project of IPCL, along with the nearly 0.9 million tonnes capacity Hazira complex of RIL and downstream complex of the Gas Authority of India Ltd are believed to have been severely affected due to the cut in natural gas supply.

All three use natural gas as feedstock in their crackers to produce ethylene and downstream polymers.

The IPCL Vadodara complex has already announced partial shutdown of most of its plants, while RIL says two of its plants have been closed due to gas supply shortage. It is not clear whether the cracker operations of the RIL petrochemical project at Hazira has been hit by the shut down of the ONGC gas cracker.

The Auraiya petrochemicals complex of GAIL, which has a capacity of around 0.3 million tonne, is running at lower capacity due to the short supply of natural gas. According to GAIL sources, the petrochemical complex is running but at a lower capacity.

In New Delhi, an ONGC official said the company was hoping to restart operations at its Hazira plant by this weekend.

Meanwhile, the shutdown of ONGC's Hazira gas processing plant due to floods has forced Indraprastha Gas Ltd (IGL), the lone supplier of piped and compressed natural gas in the national capital, to stop supplies to hotels.

Power generation in gas-fired plants in the western and northern states also remained affected for the third day in succession due to floods in Gujarat. Production was halted at the Halol plant of General Motors due to heavy rains, a company executive said today.