Gail's South India Pipe to Be Ready Soon: Press

Indian state-owned Gail’s much-delayed Kochi-Kootanad-Bengaluru-Mangaluru natural gas pipeline project is expected to be commissioned by March, Financial Express reported January 3 citing a statement by Kerala industry minister EP Jayarajan.

Once the pipeline is fully commissioned, Petronet’s LNG terminal in Kochi in the southern state of Kerala will also benefit from increased capacity utilisation. At present, the 5mn metric tons/year Kochi terminal is grossly underutilised due to lack of pipeline infrastructure. The terminal is operating at a mere 10% capacity, the newspaper reported.

Gail officials confirmed to the newspaper that the pipeline up to Kozhikode will be ready by February and thus the entire project would be ready to be commissioned by March. The first 96-km segment from Kochi to Kootanad got ready in June 2018.

The officials said that the work on the Tamil Nadu segment of the pipeline is yet to start. The completion of Koottanad-Walayar stretch is expected to facilitate gas supply to industries in Coimbatore, besides trimming the costs of city gas in this area, Financial Express reported.