More CNG stations for Pune as demand soars...
Things are looking up for Maharashtra Natural Gas (MNGL) as CNG and piped gas sales in Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad continue to soar.
This Pune-based GAIL and BPCL joint venture city gas retailer expects revenue for 2012-13 to hit Rs176cr ($34m) against Rs76cr ($14m) in 2011-12. “We crossed Rs100cr in November 2012,” MNGL tells us.
In 2011-12, we hear, MNGL sold 110,000 cm/d of gas as CNG and 20,000 cm/d piped gas to factories. In this fiscal, CNG sales are expected to cross 200,000 cm/d and piped gas to factories should cross 120,000 cm/d.
And there’s more good news: MNGL plans 15 new CNG stations this year to add to 17 it already has: nine in Pune and eight in Pimpri-Chinchwad, serving 35,000 cars and buses. Eight of the 15 new stations will be stand-alone while seven will be set up by installing CNG dispensers at established petrol stations run by state-owned BPCL, HPCL and IndianOil.
Eight of the new stations will be in Pune, seven in Pimpri-Chinchwad. Five will be online or connected to a gas supply pipeline and 10 will be ‘daughter booster stations’ (DBS), supplied by truck-mounted cylinders.
Each online station is expected to sell 15,000 cm/d while each DBS will sell 7500 cm/d. MNGL has an oil ministry allocation of 400,000 cm/d domestic gas but uses just 200,000 cm/d.
Of this, it sells 2000 cm/d to 5000 households and the rest as CNG.
