Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL), which planed to start producing natural gas from its eastern offshore D6 fields, is seeking liquefied natural gas (LNG) to test its gigantic 1,386-km East-West pipeline. RIL, which bought 5 million standard cubic metres of gas from state run GAIL India to check the 48-inch pipeline, is looking for 100 million cubic metres to build minimum pressure required in the pipeline for transporting D6 gas from the east to the west coast, industry sources said.
The pipeline, the biggest in the country and designed to transport up to 80 million standard cubic metres per day of gas from D6, which will be ready to start production by the end of the month. Sources said Reliance had in late October approached Shell India, which runs the Hazira LNG import terminal in Gujarat, seeking one and a half shiploads of LNG. But with spot LNG prices falling to $7-8 per million Btu, talks between the two have not made much progress. Petronet LNG imports 1.5 million tonnes of LNG from Qatar for meeting the Dabhol plant''s feedstock requirement. Sources said all but two of the 10 sections of the pipeline running from Kakinada in Andhra Pradesh to Baruch in Gujarat have been tested. The pipeline is scheduled to be commissioned by the end of the month to synchronise with the gas production plans. Reliance is to begin gas production from the KG-D6 fields, lying off the Andhra coast, by January with an initial output of 5 mmscmd. This would rise to 40 mmscmd by mid-2009 and eventually to 80 mmscmd by the end of 2010.
The pipeline, the biggest in the country and designed to transport up to 80 million standard cubic metres per day of gas from D6, which will be ready to start production by the end of the month. Sources said Reliance had in late October approached Shell India, which runs the Hazira LNG import terminal in Gujarat, seeking one and a half shiploads of LNG. But with spot LNG prices falling to $7-8 per million Btu, talks between the two have not made much progress. Petronet LNG imports 1.5 million tonnes of LNG from Qatar for meeting the Dabhol plant''s feedstock requirement. Sources said all but two of the 10 sections of the pipeline running from Kakinada in Andhra Pradesh to Baruch in Gujarat have been tested. The pipeline is scheduled to be commissioned by the end of the month to synchronise with the gas production plans. Reliance is to begin gas production from the KG-D6 fields, lying off the Andhra coast, by January with an initial output of 5 mmscmd. This would rise to 40 mmscmd by mid-2009 and eventually to 80 mmscmd by the end of 2010.
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