Gail plans Rs 9,000 crore capex in FY 2014

It'lll be used for laying more pipelines and expansion of the petrochemicals project at Pata in Uttar Pradesh

State-run gas utility Gail India plans to spend a Rs 9,000 crore in capital expenditure in the next fiscal, most of which will be used to complete the many on-going projects, a top company official has said.

"The capital expenditure for FY 2014 will be Rs 9,000 crore. The allocation will be utilised for the ongoing projects," Gail India Chairman and Managing Director B C Tripathi told reporters here.

He said most of the proposed Rs 9,000 crore capex will be used for laying more pipelines and expansion of its petrochemicals project at Pata in Uttar Pradesh.

In the current fiscal, Gail had planned a similar capital expenditure, but is likely to end the year with a spending of Rs 6,500 crore only, Tripathi said.

"The lower than expected capex this fiscal due to the fact that we saved in project costs and also phased out some of the projects that we undertook," he said.

Triptahi said a part of the funds will also be consumed into the part equity in the Dabhol LNG terminal, which was commissioned over the weekend.

He also said the capacity of Dabhol terminal will be doubled to 10 mtpa over the next three-four years at an investment of around Rs 3,000 crore.

"We want to expand the capacity to 7.5 mtpa from the present 5 mtpa over the next two years and then raise it to 10 mtpa in three-four years from now," Tripathi had said while announcing the commissioning of the jinxed project which was originally built by now bankrupt US energy major Enron Corp.

The 5-mtpa terminal along with the adjacent power plant was taken over by Ratnagiri Gas and Power, promoted by Gail and NTPC.

The Dabhol terminal got commissioned almost nine months after the first attempt failed and the ship carrying the maiden cargo had to return midway.

In the second attempt, GAIL imported a shipment of LNG from Russia's state-owned gas major Gazprom on December 28 for the commissioning of the terminal.

"We have offloaded over 50% of the LNG cargo and filled up two of the three storage tanks," Tripathi said.