GAIL Gas plans Rs125cr CAPEX at Sonepat
Sleepy little Sonepat in Haryana is no longer a ‘golden city’ as the ancient Sanskrit roots of its name suggest but that’s not stopping GAIL Gas.
PETROWATCH learns GAIL’s gas retail arm plans to spend nearly Rs125cr ($27m) as CAPEX over the next five years to connect the town’s factories, businesses, households and upcoming CNG stations with piped gas. GAIL Gas commissioned a 20-km steel gas pipeline grid this July, unusually laid in two separate segments, instead of encircling the town.
This is because Sonepat lies in the National Capital Region and the National Highways Authority of India refused permission for the grid to cross important local roads. “One segment (of the steel pipeline grid) is in the Kundli industrial area,” GAIL Gas tells us.
“The other is in the Rai industrial area. A third segment will be laid within the next two or three months in the Barhi industrial area.
” GAIL Gas, he adds, also plans to lay approximately 20-km of plastic pipeline. “We are ‘charging’ these pipelines (filling them with gas) in phases,” he says.
GAIL Gas currently sells 45,000 cm/d of gas in Sonepat, sourced as R-LNG from Petronet-LNG’s Dahej LNG terminal in Gujarat. Most of this is sold as piped gas to 10 factories and 300 homes.
Some also goes to the town’s sole CNG station where GAIL Gas sells approximately 12,000-kg/day. Within the next five months, GAIL Gas plans to set up two more CNG stations and within a year it plans to connect as many as 30 factories and businesses with piped gas.
Located 45-km north of Delhi, Sonepat was one of four cities won by GAIL Gas during India’s first gas license auction in April 2009.