Work on gas reservoir begins

With the country tying up natural gas supplies with Iran and Myanmar, work on creation of strategic storage facility for gas has begun.

The government had assigned the job of creation of such facilities to Gail India and Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC).

Gail has invited tenders for undertaking pre-feasibility and detailed feasibility studies for developing underground gas storage facilities in the country. Gail officials said that the exercise for identifying locations for such facilities has already started.

An official said the idea was to create one billion standard cubic metre of strategic storage reserves.

"There is a gas storage in the country at present and, therefore, the quantity is not likely to be available immediately. With 7.5 million tonne liquefied natural gas (LNG) supply being tied up with Iran and piped gas from Myanmar also being available after a few years, strategic reserves can be created," said the official.

The contribution of natural gas in the primary energy basket of the country is 8 per cent at present. It is expected to go up to 20 per cent by 2025, according to the Hydrocarbon Vision 2025.

"Such dependency on natural gas needs to be adequately backed up by a well-conceived natural gas storage systems in the country," said a Gail executive.

The project will be implemented in phases. To begin with, consultants will assist and advice on specific engineering aspects of the project related to underground storage technology and branch connections to the main transmission pipelines.

Geological targets suitable to develop underground gas storage will also be identified during the course of this study.

Following this, detailed feasibility reports would be prepared based on the findings of the exploration works.

The storage option being considered by Gail is underground storage in porous media which could be an aquifer or a depleted oil or gas field.

Another option could be underground storage in salt leached caverns.

Storage search

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• The government had assigned the job of creating reservoirs to Gail India and Oil and Natural Gas Corporation
• Gail has invited tenders for undertaking pre-feasibility and detailed feasibility studies for developing storage facilities in the country
• The contribution of natural gas in the primary energy basket of the country is 8 per cent at present