KOCHI: The natural gas consumption in Kochi has touched an all-time high. The daily consumption of natural gas hit 38.3 lakh cubic metre on Saturday, beating the earlier record of 35 lakh cubic metres two years ago.
The spike is due to the rise in LNG consumption by Bharat Petrochemicals Corporation Ltd (BPCL), which is using up about 28 lakh cubic metres and FACT (9 lakh cubic metres) per day. HOCL, City Gas Distribution company (Indian Oil and Adani Gas Pvt Ltd), Tata Ceramics and Nitta Gelatin India, based here, are among the other major consumers.
“The consumption of the natural gas by vehicles and households alone is 34,600 cubic metres, which is likely to go up in the future as the automobile sector experiences major relief when switching over to CNG,” said Tony Mathew, general manager (construction), Gas Authority of India Ltd(GAIL).
GAIL is set to commission the Kochi-Koottanad-Bengaluru-Mangaluru natural gas pipeline project (KKBMPL) in March this year.
In the industrial sector, there is a saving of Rs 17 for each kg of LPG when switching to natural gas.
“That means for a small industry using 1,000 kg of LPG per day, it can save up to Rs 17,000 per day after switching to natural gas,” Mathew said.