Business Standard reported that Reliance Gas Transportation Infrastructure Ltd is keen to build a 300 kilometer pipeline from Shahdol in Madhya Pradesh to Phulpur in Uttar Pradesh for supplying coal bed methane gas from its own block at Shahdol.

Output from there might begin in 2014.

RGTIL has now approached PNGRB with an Expression of Interest to lay down the Shahdol-Phulpur line (Phulpur is near Allahabad). According to the EOI, it has identified 73 potential consumers along the route. These include the likes of JSW Ispat Steel, Indiabulls Power, Essar Oil, Nirma, Tata Chemicals, NTPC and Rashtriya Chemicals and Fertiliser.

RGTIL said in the EOI that “In the light of the planned CBM gas production from the second half of 2014, expeditious execution is needed for this pipeline.”

The company had authorization for building four trunk pipelines Kakinada-Haldia, Kakinada-Chennai, Chennai-Tuticorin and Chennai-Bangalore-Mangalore. These were scheduled to be completed this year. However, it did not make much progress on construction, citing unavailability of gas. The Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board had pushed for cancelling the authorization given to RGTIL. A senior petroleum ministry official said that “This (cancellation) is being considered and no decision has been taken so far.”

RGTIL operates a 1,400-km gas pipeline network in the country. Of the nine authorisations granted by the government for 5,523 km of pipelines in 2007, RGTIL (through its subsidiary firm, Relogistics Infrastructure Ltd, won the four mentioned earlier, spanning 2,175 km. The remaining five pipelines, covering 3,348 km, are with GAIL and the government-owned company has started work on these.

Source - Business Standard

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