Yet another major milestone to boost power generation from gas-based power projects and also for overall economic development of the State, the government is entering into a prestigious agreement with a leading International firm namely GDF SUEZ LNG UK LTD at Taj Mahal, New Delhi on April 17 at 12.30 pm for setting up of Floating Storage Regasification Unit (FSRU) at East Coast of AP in the presence of Chief Minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy, Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas S. Jaipal Reddy, Minister Ganta Srinivasa Rao and senior officers of the State government.
In this connection, Principal Secretary, Energy, Dinesh Kumar discussed with Principal Secretary, Infrastructure & Investments and Chairman APGDC Suthirtha Bhattacharya and CMD/APTransco Ajay Jain for early commissioning of the FSRU terminal in order to mitigate the gap between the supply and demand in future. At present, Natural Gas produced domestically is not adequate to cater to the needs of electricity consumers, including the non-priority sectors such as City Gas Distribution, Ceramic, Steel Industries and so on.
From the KG-D6 fields, an allocation of about 9.5 MMSCMD of gas has been allocated by EGOM to Independent Power Producers (IPP’s) in Andhra Pradesh to meet 75% PLF. However, at present the gas supply is only about 5 MMSCMD making the PLF for the existing gas based IPP’s to only about 50%. Additionally, around 4000 MW of gas based power plants are already under commissioning stage in AP which requires approximately 20 MMSCMD of natural gas.
In the West Coast of the country, there are already three operating terminals, whereas there is no RLNG infrastructure facility to import natural gas on the Eastern Coast and AP in particular. The State government with an intention to develop the Natural Gas infrastructure to cover the entire part of State has incorporated a Company by name “Andhra Pradesh Gas Distribution Corporation Limited” (APGDC).
Andhra Pradesh Gas Distribution Corporation (APGDC), a joint venture between GAIL (India) Ltd. and Andhra Pradesh Gas Infrastructure Corporation Ltd. (APGIC) has been formed to create the Natural Gas Pipeline infrastructure and other related facilities and establish an LNG importation Terminal in the Coast of Andhra Pradesh so as to narrow the gap between demand and supply position in the State. The FSRU terminal would be set up by GAIL and APGDC by incurring an expenditure of Rs 4,000 crores. This would have capacity for Regassification of LNG of 15 MMSCM per Day. Due to the RLNG, the additional power generation of 3000 MW (72 MU/day) would be available to the State. This would be made operational by end of 2013. The average cost would be around Rs 6 per unit as compared to present RLNG variable cost of around Rs 9 per unit. (NSS)