Gas price pooling proposal being worked out: Official

Non availability of additional domestic gas has made the Power Ministry rework the proposed 'gas price pooling' scheme, an official said.
"We are reworking the gas price pooling proposal after the Oil Ministry said there is no additional gas available," Power Secretary P K Sinha told reporters here today.
Sinha added that state-run firm GAIL even agreed to cut its marketing margin to facilitate gas price pooling.
"Gail agreed to cut its marketing margin and some of states including Agra and Gujarat have agreed to exempt VAT but we cannot go ahead with the proposal (gas price pooling) as we do not have gas," he said.

As much as 16,000 mw of gas based capacity is stranded due to lack of fuel.
Gas pooling, or averaging, would mean that plants currently getting cheaper domestic gas will have to pay a slightly more. On the other hand, stations with no domestic gas supplies that are necessarily to rely on imported fuel, will pay a lot less, thereby making electricity produced affordable.
Power plants, which currently cannot buy high priced LNG, will be able to buy gas at pooled rate.
This would enable the existing gas based plants to significantly improve their run-rate or operating capacity.