KOCHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate the Kochi–Mangaluru Natural Gas Pipeline virtually on January 5, GAIL India Ltd chairman and managing director Manoj Jain said on Saturday. The pipeline is expected to bring a big boost to gas economy providing cheaper and cleaner fuel to industrial and residential consumers. Governors and chief ministers of Kerala and Karnataka and Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Dharmendra Pradhan will attend the inaugural function virtually, he said.
The 450-km pipeline can transport 12 million metric standard cubic metres of natural gas per day from the Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) regasification terminal in Kochi to Mangaluru.
The pipeline passes through Ernakulam, Thrissur, Palakkad, Malappuram, Kozhikode, Kannur and Kasaragod districts and ends in Mangaluru in Karnataka. Built at a project cost of over `3,000 crore, the pipeline will bring uninterrupted supply of environment-friendly Piped Natural Gas (PNG) to households, commercial units and Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) for transportation sector across Kerala, said GAIL director MV Iyer. The project was launched in 2009 and was expected to be completed in 2014.
However, resistance from public who raised raising safety concerns and high land price posed challenges. The first phase of the project was commissioned in August 2013 in Kochi city and Indian Oil-Adani Gas Ltd started industrial and domestic supplies in 2016. The pipeline supplies 4 million cubic metres of natural gas per day to industrial and domestic consumers in Kochi. With the commissioning of the pipeline, the demand for natural gas is expected to go up in the state. The LNG terminal in Kochi, which was established at an investment of Rs 4,700 crore, has a capacity of 5 million tonnes and the plant is expecting a 40% increase in demand with the opening of the GAIL pipeline.
The GAIL pipeline will usher in an era of industrial revolution in the state, said M P Sukumaran Nair, former chairman of Public Sector Restructuring and Internal Audit Board (RIAB) of Government of Kerala. “LNG is the cheapest and cleanest feedstock for manufacturing sector, and Fertilisers and Chemicals Travancore Ltd (FACT) will be the biggest beneficiary as it will reduce the production cost of urea and ammonia. Refineries and power plants like BSES will also benefit as LNG will replace conventional fuels like LPG, naphtha, furnace oil and diesel,” he said.
He said the transportation sector will shift to CNG as it will provide 50 per cent more mileage. MSMEs can depend on LNG for operating boilers and generators. The price of one litre of diesel is `73.87 per litre as on Saturday but LNG will be available at `38 per kg. Piped gas will be available for domestic cooking at the rate of `42 per kg while the price of LPG is `49 per kg.
Kerala has incurred a loss of `1 lakh crore due to delay in implementing the pipeline project, he said. Kerala and Gujarat were sanctioned LNG terminals in 1998 and Gujarat commissioned the terminal in 2003. But the project got delayed in Kerala due to protests.It was the Achuthanandan government that took serious efforts in implementing the project in 2008 and the terminal was launched in 2013. Even after that we wasted seven years for completing the project.
CM gets credit
The credit for completing the pipeline goes to Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan who intervened to end the protests against the project in Malappuram, Kozhikode and Kannur districts. The project is expected to bring a tax revenue of D1,000 crore for the state.
PNG distributed in Kochi 4 million cubic metres /day
Kochi LNG terminal capacity 5 million tonnes
Investment for terminal Rs 4,700 crore
State’s expected tax revenue Rs 1,000 crore