More than 11,000 km of cross-country gas pipelines have been laid for connecting the consumption centres, Minister of State for Petroleum R.P.N. Singh said Tuesday.
"Another 14,000 km of pipelines infrastructure is under various stages of implementation," the minister said in a written reply to a question in parliament on the natural gas pipeline grid in the country.
He said that as part of a multi-pronged initiative to increase natural gas availability, the government has sought to intensify domestic exploration and production through measures like a New Exploration Licensing Policy (NELP), exploring shale gas potential, LNG imports and transnational pipelines like the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India pipeline and Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline.
Singh informed the Rajya Sabha that joint venture oil and gas company, Petronet LNG, has started developing a liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal at Gangavaram port (Andhra Pradesh) which will be connected to gas pipelines for delivering gas to consumers, including the power sector.
The Gangavaram LNG terminal would address the current lack of a terminal on India's entire east coast for importing gas from abroad, which greatly increases the cost of imported gas for utilities located on the east coast.