North Tapti gas
China Light & Power has set its sights on North Tapti gas as a future source for its 655-MW gas-based power station at Paguthan in the Bharuch district of Gujarat.
PETROWATCH learns the Hong Kong-based utility wrote to the oil ministry in July asking for future North Tapti production for the GPEC (Gujarat Paguthan Energy Corporation) plant because of sharply declining supplies from the Cairn-operated Gauri and Lakshmi fields at CB-OS/2, and because of unreliable D6 gas supplies. “North Tapti gas should be available next year,” confirms a GPEC source, without revealing more.
GPEC needs 3.2m cm/d to fire its 655-MW plant and in theory has rights to 4.2m cm/d: around 2.3m cm/d from Lakshmi and Gauri, and 1.3m cm/d from D6, allocated by the government in April 2009. But Cairn’s supplies have trickled to just 126,000 cm/d, while D6 gas supplies are sporadic and unreliable.
When production begins, ONGC expects North Tapti production to scale up to 2m cm/d over eight years.