GAIL India Ltd. shall invest in petrochemical projects, pipelines and gas distribution in the coming 3 years, an amount of Rs. 30,000 crore. The company is also expecting its natural gas transmission volumes to increase to 12% while its sales of polymer to surge two-fold in FY2023-24.
According to the company’s chairman and managing director Sandeep Kumar Gupta, the company had a capital expenditure of Rs. 10,000 crore in FY2022-23 and is expanding steadily thereby developing infrastructural facilities in India.
The company is also looking at Liquefied natural gas or LNG as a fuel for transportation with the expectation of the volume to surge 12% joining Essar-promoted GreenLine that operates India’s biggest LNG-powered set of heavy commercial vehicles.
The pipeline under operation comprises 15,600 kms while under construction comprises 4,200 km. The company is said to finish about 20,000 km of the national gas grid in FY 2024-25 as per the company’s chairman.
GAIL has also won the licence to develop the Gurdaspur-Jammu natural gas pipeline of about 160 km. After this, the company will be able to access the natural gas to the northern and north-eastern parts of India through the Baruani-Guwahati pipeline which is integral to Jagdishpur-Haldia and Bokaro-Dhamra Pipeline.
India is estimated to contribute more than 10% of the incremental global growth in petrochemicals in the coming decade witnessing India’s surge in demand for petrochemicals.
The company in the past few years has acquired JBF Petrochemicals thereby adding 1.25mn tonnes of petchem capacity. With this, the company has an opportunity to add a new product in chemicals called purified terephthalic acid to the company’s existing portfolio.
The company is implementing at Usar, 500,000 tonnes per annum of India’s first propane dehydrogenation PP plant and 600,000 tonnes of polypropylene at Pata. GAIL is also implementing its first isopropyl alcohol specialty chemical plant of capacity 50,000 tonnes at Maharashtra’s Usar.
All this shall further add to GAIL’s portfolio of petrochemicals and chemicals making it 3mn tonnes per annum.
GAIL is also studying the impact of varied levels of blending of hydrogen in natural gas. The state-owned unit is developing 10MW green hydrogen production unit with a capacity of 4.3 tonnes each day situated at Madhya Pradesh’s Vijaipur based on PEM water electrolyzers. This is estimated to start in December 2023.
The strategy of the company for 2030 comprises exploring varied opportunities for increasing the company’s renewable energy portfolio through inorganic and organic routes.
The chief of GAIL added that the company has purchased two liquefaction skids with capacity 16-18 tonnes a day with each skid being portable and scalable. There are likely to be started very soon, he said.
GAIL is also developing small-scale LNG plants for areas which are not having pipeline connectivity and business of LNG as a fuel for transport.
