12,206 km of gas pipeline under various stages of construction- Oil ministry

12,206 km of gas pipeline under various stages of construction: Oil ministry

A total of 12,206 km length of natural gas pipelines is under various stages of construction, minister of state in the ministry of petroleum and natural gas Rameswar Teli informed the Lok Sabha on Thursday. India aims to increase the share of natural gas in its energy mix from 6.7% to 15% by 2030.

“With the aim to create a national gas grid (One Nation, One Gas Grid) and increase the availability of natural gas across the country, Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board (PNGRB) has authorised about 33,592 km natural gas pipeline network across the country,” Teli said in a written reply.

To raise the share of natural gas in India’s energy basket, the government took several steps including expansion of national gas grid pipeline, expansion of city gas distribution (CGD) network, setting up of liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals, and allocation of domestic gas to compressed natural gas (transport) and piped natural gas (domestic).

It also allowed marketing and pricing freedom with a ceiling price to gas produced from high pressure and high temperature areas, deep water and ultra-deep water and from coal seams, sustainable alternative towards affordable transportation (SATAT) initiatives to promote bio-CNG, among others, the minister said.

Gas pipeline infrastructure is an economical and safe mode of transporting the natural gas by connecting gas sources to gas consuming markets. Gas pipeline grid determines the structure of the gas market and its development.

PNGRB chairman Anil Jain recently said that India should prepare for an imported gas-based regime as the country imports around half of its natural gas requirement. India consumed 60 billion standard cubic meters (BSCM) of natural gas in FY23.

The regulator implemented unified tariff on April 1, 2023 for the interconnected natural gas pipelines with an objective of ‘One Nation, One Grid and One Tariff’. Entity level integrated natural gas pipeline tariff was introduced in the regulations. Further, the number of unified tariff zones have been increased from two to three.

It maybe noted that the government had launched SATAT in 2018 with the aim to establish an ecosystem for production of compressed bio gas (CBG) from various waste and biomass sources, and also for promoting its use along with natural gas. An overall target of 15 million metric tonne per annum (MMTPA) of CBG production has been set.

A total of 71 commercial scale biogas or CBG plants registered on the GOBARdhan portal have been commissioned till June 2023. The oil and gas marketing companies (OGMCs) procure CBG from potential entrepreneurs under the SATAT initiative.