GAIL (India) Limited has approved an investment of Rs. 8,000 crore for setting up of new pipelines and augmenting capacity of an existing pipeline. The investment was approved in the Company’s Board meeting held last week. This was announced by Dr. U D Choubey, Chairman and Managing Director, GAIL at a media briefing here today. Others present at the briefing were Shri R K Goel, Director (Finance) and Shri R D Goyal, Director (Projects), GAIL.
The Board of GAIL approved an investment of Rs. 7,600 crore for a 2050 km pipeline from Jagdishpur to Halida. The pipeline will consist of 800 km, 36” trunk pipeline and 1250 km spurlines of diameter 30” / 24” / 18” / 12”. This is so far the single largest investment in any pipeline by GAIL.
The project will be executed under two phases. In Part A of the first phase, 1,410 km of pipeline will be laid from Haldia to Phulpur, along with spurlines to various consumers like Hindustan Fertilizer Corporation at Durgapur and Barauni, Fertilizer Corporation of India at Sindri and Barauni, power plant at Barh and Bettiah and City Gate Stations (CGS) at Patna, Chapra, Siwan, Gopalganj and Bettiah. Under Phase-I B of the project, spurlines and feeder lines will be laid for a length of 450 km to the City Gate Stations a Kolkata, Ranchi, Jamshedpur, Varanasi and Allahabad and WBDPC at Sagardighi. Phase-II of the project will involve installation of a compressor at Haldia and laying of 190 km of feeder lines to CSES Haldia, WBPDC Bandel and Katwa, DPL Durgapur and SAIL's plants at Durgapur and Bokaro and petrochemical plant at Barauni.
A capital expenditure of Rs 5,732.50 crore and Rs 919.72 crore will be incurred on Part-IA and Part-IB, respectively, under Phase-I of the project, while another Rs 943.96 crore will be spent under the second phase of the pipeline.
Part IA of Phase-I of the project is scheduled to be completed by December, 2011, while Part-IB will be completed by March, 2011. The second phase of the project is expected to be completed by December, 2013. The project has been designed to cater to gas demand of various customers in the fertilizer, power plant, steel, petrochemical and small and medium scale units in the states of eastern UP, Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal.
An investment of Rs. 250 crore for 275 km pipeline from Karanpur - Moradabad – Kashipur – Rudrapur was also approved by the Board. This pipeline will consist of 100 km of 12” diameter section and another 175 km of spurlines of varying diameters.
The proposal to upgrade the capacity of the existing Bajera – Agra – Ferozabad pipeline at an investment of Rs. 200 crore was also approved by the Board.
GAIL had received the authorization for laying Jagdishpur - Haldia pipeline from MoP&NG in July, 2007.
The Board approval for the three pipelines comes close on the heels of Board approval of over Rs. 7,500 crore for laying Dabhol – Bengaluru and Kochi – Kanjirkkod – Bengaluru – Mangalore pipelines in June earlier this year.
GAIL is already implementing the Chainsa – Jhajjhar – Hissar and Dadri – Bawana - Nangal pipelines and working on augmenting the capacities of Dahej – Vijaipur and Vijaipur – Dadri pipelines.
GAIL today owns and operates a network of over 7,100 km of Natural Gas high pressure trunk pipeline with a capacity to carry 155 MMSCMD of natural gas across the country. Today, the major focus for GAIL is to maintain its dominant position in the gas business, especially the transmission segment and continue the relationship with existing customers and also add more customers. Therefore, during the 11th plan period, GAIL would build 5000 km of pipelines at an estimated investment of Rs. 28,000 crore. When these pipelines are commissioned, the capacity is expected to increase to around 300 MMSCMD.
