Aavantika plans Rs75cr CGD spend in three towns
Madhya Pradesh has been largely neglected by the CGD sector so it’s heartening to hear Aavantika Gas has budgeted CAPEX of Rs75cr ($15m) this year on developing infrastructure in Gwalior, Ujjain and Indore.
On May 19 junior oil minister RPN Singh and junior commerce and industry minister Jyotiraditya Scindia performed a ‘ground-breaking’ ceremony to kick-off plastic pipeline laying work in Gwalior. Scindia is the grandson of the fortress town’s former ‘Maharaja’ who if alive would have been proud to learn Aavantika is planning to lay an 8-inch-diameter, 18-km steel pipeline and 5-km of plastic pipeline.
“We are appointing a pipeline laying contractor for the steel grid,” says Aavantika, “It must be laid by December.” Aavantika sells 2500 cm/d of gas in Gwalior as CNG from one ‘online’ mother station.
By mid-June, the GAIL/Hindustan Petroleum JV hopes to commission a second ‘mother’ station fed from GAIL’s Malanpur to Kalaras ‘spur’ pipeline. Another four ‘daughter stations’ are planned.
As for piped gas, Aavantika wants to sell 1500 cm/d to 2000 households, and another 15,000 cm/d to local factories. Total Gwalior gas sales will rise to 20,000 cm/d, it predicts.
In Ujjain, Aavantika sells 2500 cm/d as CNG and piped gas to a few households. Another ‘mother’ CNG station is planned soon, fed from GAIL’s Jagoti to Pithampur pipeline.
Aavantika also proposes to lay a 6-inch diameter, 14-km steel gas grid. At Indore, Aavantika sells 70,000 cm/d as CNG from four stations.
This year, Indore will get its second mother CNG station and up to five online stations, besides a 10-inch diameter, 40-km steel gas grid.