Task force to hasten gas pipeline projects

“The Centre has identified five gas pipeline projects to be accorded     trunk line status at the national level for their role in meeting the energy requirements of industries. The proposed Task Force will work for accelerating the laying of these pipelines,” highly placed sources in the Petroleum Ministry told Deccan Herald.

The five trunk natural gas pipelines projects are Dabhol- Bangalore pipeline, Kochi-Kanjirkod-Bangalore-Mangalore pipeline, Jagdishpur Haldia pipeline, Dadri-Bawana-Nangal pipeline and Chainsa-Gurgaon-Jhajjar – Hissar pipeline.
“Considering the importance of these gas pipelines the Petroleum Ministry has proposed setting up a high powered Task Force, which will
remove roadblocks coming on the way of implementation of these projects,” sources said.

The Task Force, which will closely monitor the progress on laying of these trunk pipelines, will coordinate with concerned state governments to sort out ground level problems stalling the implementation work, sources said.            
The Center has appointed the state-owned gas major GAIL (India) Limited to construct the Kochi-Kanjirkod- Bangalore-Mangalore pipeline and the Dabhol-Bangalore pipeline project.  The 840 km long Kochi-Kanjirkod- Bangalore-Mangalore pipeline is proposed to be built at a cost of Rs 3033 crore.
The first phase of the Kochi-Kanjirkod- Bangalore-Mangalore pipeline, which will transport Re-gasified Liquefied Natural Gas from the Kochi LNG terminal, is scheduled to be completed by March 2012.

Second phase
The second phase, which will cost Rs 2765 crore, is proposed to be completed by December 2012.
The 730-km long Dabhol Bangalore pipeline project is estimated to cost Rs 4544.
The first phase, under which pipeline will be laid from Dabhol to Bangalore via Gokak, is scheduled to be completed by March 2012.  The second phase, which is scheduled to be completed by December, will focus on laying spur lines originating from Bangalore.   
The 876-km long Jagdishpur-Haldia gas pipeline is estimated to cost Rs 7074 crore while the 610 km long Dadri-Nangal pipeline and 310-km long Chainsa-Hissar project will cost Rs 2357 crore and Rs 833 crores respectively.

These pipelines would enable existing non-gas based plants to convert to natural gas apart from creation of new gas-based projects.
“The basis idea behind setting up high-powered Task Force is that through these projects have been approved quite some time back there is no speed in completing these major pipelines having national importance,” sources said. The main job of the Task Force will be to speed up implementation of these projects by sorting out ground level problems with coordination with concerned state governments at the highest level, sources said.

While sourcing of gas for all these pipeline projects have been more or less finalized there have been problems in some projects for acquiring the land for creating the corridor for laying the pipelines, sources said.
In case of the Dabhol-Bangalore gas pipeline natural gas will be sourced from the KG-D6 (in the Krishna Godavari basin) being operated by the Mukesh Ambani-owned Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), sources added.