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“We are planning to allot gas from the new fields of ONGC (Oil and Natural Gas Corp) and GSPC (Gujarat State Petroleum Corp) to these power plants,” said the official, who did not want to be named.
An empowered group of ministers (EGoM) led by Defence Minister A K Antony had in its meeting on July 17 decided against tampering with the present priority ranking mechanism. Currently, priority ranking is given in the pecking order of existing gas-based urea plants, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) units, city gas distribution projects and existing gas-based power plants.
“ONGC is set to start production from the KG-DWN-98/2 block by 2016-17. This would be a huge boost for the sector. These fields have to make up for the shortfall in the KG-D6, as RIL’s new discoveries may come up for production by 2018-19 only,” added the petroleum ministry official. ONGC has found 4.85 trillion cubic feet of gas reserves in nine discoveries in the KG Basin, off the Andhra coast.
Sources said about 6-10 million standard cubic feet per day (mscmd) can be allotted for the power sector from ONGC and GSPC fields by 2016. The production from KG-D6 has dropped 77 per cent from 61 mscmd in 2010 to about 14 mscmd now. While there are claims that majority of these 25 power plants were not based on KG-D6 gas, the allocation to these power units from the RIL block was supposed to be around 29.7 mscmd.
Moreover, around 8,000 Mw of new gas-based capacities are also waiting for gas allocation now.
However, it would still be a jigsaw for the government as new fertiliser units, as well as LPG extraction planst, are also in queue for fresh allocation of about 6 mscmd. A change in priority ranking could have added Rs 6,000 crore to the urea subsidy, which prompted the government to go in defence as far as priority ranking is concerned.
Though the EGoM was scheduled for August 14, it was postponed and the government is yet to come out with a fresh date.
