New Delhi, Sept 24: State-run gas firm Gail (India) Ltd will invest over Rs 1500 crore in laying new pipelines for supplying Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) imported at Dahej to customers in north. "We plan to lay 1500-km of new pipelines for selling regassified LNG from Dahej," Gail chairman and managing director Proshanto Banerjee told reporters here.

The company would lay Dadri-Panipat, Kota-Jodhpur and Jagdishpur-Phulpur branch pipelines on the main trunk HBJ (Hazira-Bijapur-Jagdishpur) pipeline. These will be in addition to the 612 million dollar Dahej-Vijaipur and 294 million dollar Dahej-Uran gas pipelines, the construction on which is nearing completion. While Dahej-Vijaipur and Dahej-Uran gas pipelines will be synchronised with the arrival of LNG from Qatar in January 2004, the three other pipelines would take 2 years to complete, the time during which the Dahej terminal too would scale upto its maximum capacity of 5 million tonnes (18 million standard cubic meters per day).

The 612-km Dahej-Vijaipur pipeline would have a capacity to evacuate 20 mmscmd while the Dahej-Uran would transport 12 mmsmcd of gas, he said.

Banerjee hoped regassified LNG from Dahej would be delivered at just over 3.5 dollars per million BTU (British thermal unit), around the same price which major customers in power and fertiliser sectors are willing to pay for LNG. Gail would market 60 per cent of the 5 million tonnes LNG arriving at Dahej while Indian Oil Corp (IOC) will take 30 per cent and the remaining 10 per cent would be sold to Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd.

Bureau Report