RIL starts gas supply to Bawana power project

After months of delay, Reliance Industries today began supplying natural gas to Pragati Power Corp's Bawana power project, easing power deficit in the national capital.

RIL this morning began supplying natural gas from its eastern offshore KG-D6 fields to the 750 MW Bawana power plant, sources in know of the development said.

Bawana is getting about 40-45% of the 0.836 million standard cubic meters per day of gas it had signed for, as KG-D6 production is half of the volumes RIL had contracted for.

The power plant needs 2.8 mmscmd of gas to generate 750 MW of electricity. It currently gets 1.564 mmscmd from state- owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC).

To meet the balance, the government had allocated 0.93 mmscmd of gas from RIL's KG-D6 fields for 2009-10 and 2010-11. But Pragati Power could not sign the Gas Sales and Purchase Agreement (GSPA) was the power plant was running behind schedule.

By the time the plant was ready, KG-D6 output had dropped by a massive 40%.

Delhi residents this summer faced long-hours of power cuts as demand soared to a record 5,300 MW this year from 5,028 MW last year. The national capital gets 2,400 MW of electricity from the Central pool and it generates about 1,000 MW of its own power.

Sources said as RIL was unable to meet the signed commitments to supply over 61 mmscmd of gas, it resisted signing new supply contracts.

Under intense pressure from Delhi government, it finally relented and signed a GSPA with Pragati Power.

KG-D6 fields had seen drop from 61.5 mmscmd in March, 2010, to just over 30 mmscmd now, forcing pro-rata cuts in supplying to customers.

Sources said when the KG-D6 gas production dropped, the government ordered a pro-rata cut in supplies to 25 power plants which had an original allocation of 28.90 mmscmd. 16 fertiliser plants, which were allocated 15.668 mmscmd of KG-D6 gas, did not face such a cut.

Pragati power is the 26th power plant to get supplies from KG-D6 and supplies to it would mean mean a further drop in supplies to power plants, sources added.