ONGC to give gas from Gamij field to Adani, Astron under gas-sale

After several postponement of tenders for gas sale, Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) has finally allocated gas from its marginal field at Gamij near Kheda to players like Adani Gas Ltd (AGL), Astron Zircon Pvt. Ltd. and Akash Ceramics Pvt. Ltd.

While Adani Gas will utilise the gas to meet the demand from its industrial users, other companies mainly engaged in the production of sodium silicates, tiles, and ceramics will be able to directly procure gas as part of ONGC's effort to directly sell gas from its marginal fields.

As per the provisions in the MoPNG-GoI guidelines, the allocation of 21000 scmd natural gas on fall-back basis has been made through open tendering, official sources at ONGC stated. The gas sale agreement has been made for five years.

Currently, there are three production installations at Gamij viz., GGS#1, GGS#2 & GGS#3 handling around 320 tpd crude oil and around 10544 scmd gas based on 2014-15 first half average. During the year 2013-14, the average gas production from Gamij was around 6789 scmd.

It needs to be mentioned here that due to delays in tendering of gas sale for the marginal field at Gamij, certain quantity of gas was being flared to meet technical requirements which was "unavoidable".

As per official sources at ONGC, while Adani Gas has been allocated 10000 scmd of gas from ex-Gamij GGS3, Akash Ceramics will be getting 2000 scmd from ex-Gamij GGS2 whereas Astron Zircon has been allocated 4000 scmd and 5000 scmd of gas from ex-Gamij GGS2 and ex-Gamij GGS3, respectively.

"Gas supply has already commenced to Astron Zircon from Gamij GGS2 and Gamij GGS3. from September 4 and September 15, 2014, respectively. Akash Ceramics is expected to draw/commence gas supply from September 25, 2014 and Adani Gas from November 3, 2014, respectively," said sources at ONGC.

The rate of gas under the allocation has been fixed between $10.10 AND $11.10 per mmbtu. According to sources at Adani Gas, the company has been allocated gas from Gamij GGS3 at $11.10 per mmbtu. For the next five years, the said allocation will generate an additional gas-sales revenue of Rs 23.94 crore per annum for ONGC.

"The 10000 scmd will convert into roughly 7000 kg per day of CNG which will be negligible as compared to the company's total current capacity of 300,000 kg per day. However, Adani Gas will be using the gas from the marginal field at Gamij for supply to industry," said sources at Adani Gas.

The company is currently in the process of installing its pipeline even as work is on for an Adani CNG station.

Meanwhile, in addition to the sales-gas allocations to Adani, Astron and Akash Ceramics, gas is also being supplied to Mahipal from Gamij GGS#1.