MUMBAI: Ultra Gas & Energy, the LNG retailing business of the Essar group, is earmarking Rs 900 crore to massively scale up its network from just six now to 100 outlets of the greener industrial fuel by March 2028, which would mostly come up along the Golden Quadrilateral.
Ultra Gas, which began operations in 2021, already operates six LNG retailing units, emerging as the largest in the country, where nearly a dozen players including public sector fuel majors like IOC, BPCL, HPCL and Gail among others operate 20 such stations between them.
Ultra Gas operates its six LNG dispensing outlets across major freight corridors connecting Bhilwara in Rajasthan, Anand in Gujarat, Chakan-Pune in Maharashtra, Jalna in Maharashtra, Toranagallu in Karnataka, and Vallam in Tamil Nadu. Its first station was in Vallam set up in 2023, the second in Anand and the other four came up this year.
“As a clean-tech company, we are pioneering the development of the country’s largest LNG fuelling network, driving the transition towards sustainable and low-emission transportation. Accordingly, we have planned to scale up our network to 100 outlets, investing at least Rs 900 crore, by the turn of fiscal 2028,” Maqsood Shaikh, the chief executive of Ultra Gas, told TNIE here Monday.
He said these outlets will come up along the Golden Quadrilateral (the national highways connecting the four major metros of Mumbai, Delhi Kolkata and Chennai) and the new expressways being built by the National Highways Authority, spanning Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Haryana, Punjab, Karnataka, Odisha, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand.
Shaikh said there are only 1,100 trucks (normally of 41 tonnage) that ferry LNG but the number is slated to double to 3,000 by next year and further to 10,000 by the end of fiscal 2028.
On the demand side, he said currently the monthly demand for LNG is 1,500 tonnes and this is projected to touch 25,000 tonnes by March 2028.
LNG is priced 10% cheaper than diesel now.
He said each outlet will need about 1.5 acres of land and will have integrated infrastructure to support electric vehicle charging, as the company plans to have multi-fuel, low-emission mobility solutions.
The new pump locations will be chosen to serve high-density logistics and industrial zones, Each station will have a scalable capacity of 50 tonnes, capable of refuelling up to 600 LNG trucks per month. Each station can reduce up to 66,000 tonnes of CO₂ emissions annually, collectively reducing 1 million tonnes of CO₂.
Other private players in LNG refueling include Adani Total Gas, Baidyanath LNG, King Gas and Cryo Gas among others, he said.
Ultra Gas also operates bio-LNG, CBG and EV charging stations.