AG&P angry as IndianOil revises pipeline route

Vol 23, PW 2 (14 Nov 19) Midstream & Downstream

Some blame Manila-headquartered AG&P for not keeping itself informed and some blame the PNGRB for not being more communicative.

Either way, the PNGRB has scheduled an open house on November 25 to find a way forward after AG&P wasted time and money submitting an application by October to lay a 20-km pipeline from its proposed Karaikal LNG terminal in Puducherry to IndianOil's upcoming Ennore to Tuticorin pipeline in Kerala which had in the meantime been re-routed without AG&P's knowledge. Sources say AG&P made a mistake depending solely on an authorisation letter granted by the PNGRB to IOC in 2015 for the 1250-km Ennore to Tuticorin pipeline which resulted in AG&P wrongly calculating the length of a tie-in pipeline from Karaikal as not more than 20-km.

AG&P failed to notice IOC had on April 18, 2019 submitted a re-routing proposal to the PNGRB which in effect means AG&P's tie-in pipeline needs to be 120-km long not just 20-km. IOC general manager P Sham Rao confirmed this change in a two-page letter submitted to PNGRB secretary Vandana Sharma on November 8.

When contacted, an angry AG&P source claims the PNGRB failed to upload the new pipeline route map in time. "The PNGRB uploaded the map only in August or September," he complains.

AG&P must now re-work the entire project cost and schedule unless the PNGRB miraculously finds another solution at the November 25 open house.

AG&P is planning to develop a LNG terminal at Karaikal Port consisting of a Floating Storage Unit (FSU) with a capacity of 125,000 to 216,000-cubic metres, a jetty to berth both the FSU and the LNG delivery vessel side by side, an onshore re-gasification with a capacity of 1m t/y - expandable up to 6m t/y, an LNG truck loading facility, an LNG loading and R-LNG evacuation pipeline network, and custody transfer gas metering systems. On October 27, 2017, AG&P signed a binding term-sheet with Chennai-based Karaikal Port for the development of the LNG project. AG&P bid in CGD-IX and X for areas strategically located near its LNG project so it can supply them with R-LNG. It won two areas in CGD-IX including Ramanathapuram in Tamil Nadu; and nine areas in CGD-X including the Alapuzzha, Kollam and Thiruvananthapuram licence in Kerala.

AG&P angry as IndianOil revises pipeline route

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