The Hindu Business Line : BPCL, GSPC to ink piped gas supply deal

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BPCL, GSPC to ink piped gas supply deal

Vinod Mathew

Gandhinagar , Aug 4

GUJARAT State Petroleum Corporation Ltd (GSPC) is entering into a gas sale agreement with Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) for the supply of 5 lakh standard cubic metres per day (scmd) for distribution in the State capital.

The sale agreement is slated to be signed on Thursday by Mr D.J. Pandian, Managing Director of GSPC, and Mr S. Behuria, Chairman, BPCL.

BPCL, which had won the gas distribution right for Gandhinagar, Mehsana and Himmat Nagar, has drawn an investment plan of Rs 300 crore for putting in place the requisite infrastructure. The entire investment is likely to be made over the next 30 months and the gas supply would begin at 1.5 lakh scmd, to be built up to 5 lakh scmd over this period.

Talking to Business Line, Mr C.K. Koshy, Chairman, GSPC, said the Gandhinagar project is likely to become the benchmark for other gas distribution circles, given the size of the capital city. The BPCL team has already completed a survey for the house-to-house distribution of piped gas in Gandhinagar. The petroleum company has applied to the Gujarat Roads and Buildings Department for the purchase of two plots of land on commercial rates to set its CNG stations.

"The Gujarat Government wants Gandhinagar to become the model city vis-a-vis gas distribution and conversion to CNG. The advantage here is that it is up to the Government to pass the necessary orders to convert as many Government vehicles to CNG as it wants. Moreover, it has a captive user in the State Transport Corporation whose 150 transport buses ply daily between Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar to bring in the Government employees and take them back," Mr Koshy said.

The BPCL project is likely to galvanise into action the CNG usage pattern in Ahmedabad, which has been adjudged to be among the most polluted cities in the country. The Gandhinagar project of BPCL has become viable with the GSPC gas reaching Ahmedabad and even up to the Kalol plant of IFFCO which is only some 10 km off the capital city.

Currently, there are three piped gas distribution circles in the State with the Adani group leading the fray with Vadodara and Ahmedabad. While BPCL becomes the second company to get off the block to take gas to households and industrial houses, the third company is GAIL. However, that would take some time, as the distribution zone allotted to GAIL is Surendra Nagar and Rajkot, where the gas transmission pipelines of Gujarat State Petronet Ltd will reach only in the next couple of years.