GAIL steps up Agra supply
VISHAL SHARMA
AGRA. The Gas Authority of India Limited has decided to extend its gas supply to 39 more Agra units in the coming days. At present, it is supplying natural gas to almost 300 industrial units of Agra and Firozabad.
Talking to Business Standard on Tuesday in Agra, U.D. Chowbey, Director Marketing, GAIL said that while the company was supplying gas to about 132 industrial units of Agra, quite a large number of units had also begun demanding for a CNG connection and assessing from the 34 thousand mscmd Metric Standard Cubic Meters per Day gas still left over with GAIL for consumption in Agra, the company had decided to add 39 more industrial units in its consumers list in the town and the project was expected to commence soon, completing off within three months.
He said that these newly added industrial units could be supplied with natural gas at prorata basis. Besides, he said, despite being among the lowest gas consuming customers of GAIL, the Agra industrial units still fell under the first category of users for the company under the Supreme Court directives and it was being felt that the 1.1 Million Metric Standard Cubic Meters per Day (mmscmd) CNG that was being supplied to the Agra and Firozabad industries was not sufficient and there was a need for another 1 mmscmd gas that GAIL was unable to supply at present.
According to Mr. Chowbey, spare APM gas above the 70 mmscmd supply at present was not available in the country and in case of excess gas consumption the company had to use Re-Liquified Natural Gas (RLNG) out of the 18 mmscmd available through imports, which made it almost two times costlier than the APM gas. He said that if the Agra industries needed more gas, RLNG could be made available to them on fallback bases on higher rates.
But the Agra industrialists do not appear to be ready to digest this bargain easily. Amar Mittal, Chairman, Agra Iron Founders Association said that since there was a minimum guarantee clause involved in the agreement with GAIL, the industrialists should not be "punished" for using more gas only for short intervals by charging RLNG rates as even when the industry used less gas than the minimum guarantee, they were still made to pay the minimum amount.
He said that there were some units that were not even utilizing the minimum of 300 mscmd gas and were willing to surrender a part of this capacity for utilization by other units but GAIL refused to supply gas to indsutries that wished to utilize gas below the 300 mscmd limit. Also, he said, since the technology of gas based cupola furnace that had been developed by National Metallurgical Laboratory (NML), Jamshedpur and transferred to Tata Korf Engineering Services Ltd. (TKES) for commercialization, had failed to deliver the expected result and despite the gas supply being installed almost 18 months back, the actual production in the Agra indsutrial units could only start about six months earlier, when the Agra indsutrialists developed their own technology for a gas based cupola furnace. He demanded that GAIL should take a lenient view on the gas tariff levied on the Agra units for the non-productive period.
(UNITED NEWS NETWORK)
AGRA. The Gas Authority of India Limited has decided to extend its gas supply to 39 more Agra units in the coming days. At present, it is supplying natural gas to almost 300 industrial units of Agra and Firozabad.
Talking to Business Standard on Tuesday in Agra, U.D. Chowbey, Director Marketing, GAIL said that while the company was supplying gas to about 132 industrial units of Agra, quite a large number of units had also begun demanding for a CNG connection and assessing from the 34 thousand mscmd Metric Standard Cubic Meters per Day gas still left over with GAIL for consumption in Agra, the company had decided to add 39 more industrial units in its consumers list in the town and the project was expected to commence soon, completing off within three months.
He said that these newly added industrial units could be supplied with natural gas at prorata basis. Besides, he said, despite being among the lowest gas consuming customers of GAIL, the Agra industrial units still fell under the first category of users for the company under the Supreme Court directives and it was being felt that the 1.1 Million Metric Standard Cubic Meters per Day (mmscmd) CNG that was being supplied to the Agra and Firozabad industries was not sufficient and there was a need for another 1 mmscmd gas that GAIL was unable to supply at present.
According to Mr. Chowbey, spare APM gas above the 70 mmscmd supply at present was not available in the country and in case of excess gas consumption the company had to use Re-Liquified Natural Gas (RLNG) out of the 18 mmscmd available through imports, which made it almost two times costlier than the APM gas. He said that if the Agra industries needed more gas, RLNG could be made available to them on fallback bases on higher rates.
But the Agra industrialists do not appear to be ready to digest this bargain easily. Amar Mittal, Chairman, Agra Iron Founders Association said that since there was a minimum guarantee clause involved in the agreement with GAIL, the industrialists should not be "punished" for using more gas only for short intervals by charging RLNG rates as even when the industry used less gas than the minimum guarantee, they were still made to pay the minimum amount.
He said that there were some units that were not even utilizing the minimum of 300 mscmd gas and were willing to surrender a part of this capacity for utilization by other units but GAIL refused to supply gas to indsutries that wished to utilize gas below the 300 mscmd limit. Also, he said, since the technology of gas based cupola furnace that had been developed by National Metallurgical Laboratory (NML), Jamshedpur and transferred to Tata Korf Engineering Services Ltd. (TKES) for commercialization, had failed to deliver the expected result and despite the gas supply being installed almost 18 months back, the actual production in the Agra indsutrial units could only start about six months earlier, when the Agra indsutrialists developed their own technology for a gas based cupola furnace. He demanded that GAIL should take a lenient view on the gas tariff levied on the Agra units for the non-productive period.
(UNITED NEWS NETWORK)
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