Petroleum Secretary compliments GAIL India on Dahej - Dabhol pipeline completion

Gail India Ltd has announced that Secretary, Petroleum and Natural Gas, Shri. M S Srinivasan on July 14, 2007 complimented GAIL on the completion of the Dahej-Dabhol pipeline project and termed this achievement as a landmark in pipeline project execution, not only in India but also by international standards. Shri Srinivasan was on a visit to GAIL's IP Station at Panvel this morning.

GAIL senior management including the CMD, Dr. U D Choubey, Director (Finance), Shri R K Goel, Director (Projects), Shri Santosh Kumar, Director (Business Development), Shri A K Purwaha and Director (Marketing), Shri B C Tripathi, Shri Mukesh Rohatgi, CMD, EIL, senior representatives of the contractors and Projects and Operations & Maintenance (O&M) personnel from GAIL were present.

Speaking on the occasion, the Secretary praised GAIL for completing the project despite the several challenges and hindrances of terrain, land acquisition, weather etc. This, he said, was all the more commendable since the project had been completed without any cost overruns and in a very tight time schedule. He complimented the entire team of GAIL on its superb work execution and said that with this GAIL had set a new benchmark in pipeline execution. He praised the efforts of GAIL personnel and other parties involved for their perseverance and commitment to the project and said that he was hopeful that GAIL would not only execute the new pipeline projects in a similar manner but set new benchmarks. The completion of this project, he said, was of national significance as it has rejuvenated the Dabhol Power Project which was a national asset.

CMD, GAIL, Dr. Choubey assured him that GAIL would maintain its high standards of project execution and meet his expectations.

GAIL has laid 30" diameter, 581 km long Dahej - Panvel - Dabhol pipeline within the estimated cost of Rs 3200 crore. The pipeline has a design capacity of 12 MMSCMD and will carry R-LNG from Petronet LNG Ltd's LNG terminal at Dahej to Dabhol. The pipeline will supply natural gas to the Dabhol Power plant of Ratnagiri Gas and Power Pvt Ltd (RGPPL), and thus help in revival of the power plant.

Being a project of national importance for revival of Dabhol power plant, the project was being monitored regularly by Empowered Group of Ministers and Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas to ensure expeditious completion of this project.

The inter-state gas pipeline links the two important gas markets of Gujarat and Maharashtra. Currently, the gas market in Gujarat has access to 5 different gas supply sources namely, (a) the South Bassein fields; (b) Panna-Mukta Tapti Field; (c) Lakshmi fields; (d) Dahej RLNG and (d) Shell RLNG. On the other hand, the Maharashtra market has access to gas supplies from only the Bombay High Fields, which is fast declining. Once the DUPL project is commissioned, the Gujarat and Maharashtra markets shall be interconnected. The pipeline will also enable supply of natural gas to various cities and towns and industries in areas falling enroute to the pipeline such as Vapi, Valsad, Navsari in Gujarat and Bhiwandi, Kalyan, Thane, Patalganga, Thapoli and Mahad in Maharashtra.

The project was executed in five spreads with the deployment of heavy construction equipment. Approximately 224 km long stretch of the pipeline is covered in Gujarat state, 5 km in Silvasa and the remaining 352 km long stretch of the trunk line passes through Maharashtra. The pipeline traverses through 50 river crossings including 1 km wide stretches on Narmada, Tapi, Kal and Vashishti rivers. The project also involved 13 crossings by Horizontal Direction Drilling (HDD) method. The project execution team also had to overcome almost 300 km of rocky and steep hilly terrain.

Source : Equity Bulls

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