All eyes on IOC gas pipeline from Ennore
Not only is IndianOil’s LNG project in Tamil Nadu reviving but so too is its proposed 1167-km R-LNG evacuation pipeline from the terminal at Ennore to Bengaluru in Karnataka.
“Last week," Anish Aggarwal, IndianOil director pipelines, tells PETROWATCH on May 29, "we informally learnt from the PNGRB that we will receive permission to lay the pipeline.” All now hinges on the outcome of a Supreme Court case filed by GAIL in 2013 challenging the Tamil Nadu state government’s decision to block it from acquiring land from farmers to lay its own pipeline from Kochi to Bengaluru.
“We’ll receive Board authorisation only after the Supreme Court ruling on GAIL's case is delivered,” said Aggarwal “We expect the ruling after the Supreme Court’s summer break ends in July.” Another IOC source explains the ruling is important as Tamil Nadu wants all pipelines laid along highways.
“That is impossible,” he says. “Even we will have to change the route of our planned (Ennore to Bengaluru) pipeline if they demand that.
Let’s wait for the ruling.” In its application to the PNGRB on January 18, 2013 IndianOil says it will lay a 325-km pipeline from Ennore to Nagapattinam, a 242-km spur line from Nagapattinam to Madurai, a 318-km spur line from Nagapattinam to Tuticorin and a 290-km spur line from Thiruvallar in Tamil Nadu to Bengaluru in Karnataka.