Gail Extends East India Gas Network

India’s biggest gas infrastructure and marketing company Gail has made further progress on the ambitious natural gas pipeline project in east India, the 2,655-km long Jagdishpur-Haldia and Bokaro-Dhamra Natural Gas Pipeline (JHBDPL) project, it said December 29.

The company has ordered some 400 km of linepipe to run from Dobhi (in the state of Bihar) to Durgapur (in the state of West Bengal). With these awards, major contracts of the JHBDPL project, pipe supply orders for 2,100 km and pipeline laying orders for 1,700 km, have been finalised, Gail said.

The JHBDPL project, also known as the Pradhan Mantri Urja Ganga project, was inaugurated by Indian prime minister Narendra Modi in July 2015. According to Gail, the project is in full swing and the company has till date committed over rupees 65bn ($1.02bn) for the project which will pass through the eastern Indian states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Odisha.

The Modi government has been working aggressively on building gas infrastructure in east India, where there are no LNG import terminals so far. The government wants to increase the share of gas in the country from 6-7% today, to 15% in the next five years, which will require LNG and pipeline gas in the eastern states.

Gail is moving forward swiftly with its Kochi-Kottanad-Mangalore gas pipeline project in the southern Indian states of Kerala and Karnataka as well. This pipeline is expected to benefit Petronet’s Kochi LNG terminal, which is unable to operate at nameplate.

“I have reviewed the project activities in Kochi last week and I am confident that the pipeline will be completed well before the scheduled completion of February 2019,” said Gail boss BC Tripathi. He said last month that Gail's capital expenditure for the next financial year is expected to exceed rupees 60bn which will be a jump of more than 50% of this year.