36 towns to get RIL gas

Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) and the state government have decided to go ahead with the first phase of the city gas network and identified 36 towns to be supplied by the East-West pipeline. The pipeline from the KG Basin to Bharoch will supply natural gas to Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Gujarat. Starting from Kakinada in East Godavari district, the pipeline will pass through West Godavari, Krishna, Khammam, Nalgonda, Hyderabad, Ranga Reddy and Medak.All the major towns in these districts will be connected to the main pipeline, a senior RIL official said. “We will soon finalise the city gas distribution project with a delivery capacity of 5 million standard cubic metres per day,” said Mr P.M.S. Prasad, president and CEO of RIL (oil and gas). Though formal clearance for the project has to come from the regulatory authorities concerned, it is likely to be approved as RIL is the only player with gas reserves and existing distribution network.Newly formed Reliance Gas Transportation Infrastructure Ltd is investing nearly $4 billion (Rs 16,000 crore) on the 1,400-km pipeline. RIL is learnt to have agreed to a request by the Chief Minister, Dr Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy, to supply cooking gas at a lower rate than decided by the Centre recently. “The price would be less than $4.3 per MMBtu (million British thermal units). It will certainly be the lowest rate Reliance is offering any state,” said a senior official in the energy department.RIL will take up two major city gas distribution projects in Tamil Nadu and Gujarat. The company also has its sights set on a network for Bangalore. Company officials told this correspondent that RIL has set a conservative target of 20 million consumers for its city gas network this year. Currently, Mumbai and Delhi have exclusive distributors for domestic gas via pipeline. Mumbai is supplied by Mahanagar Gas Ltd and Delhi by Indraprastha Gas.