Scindia wants EGoM to discuss gas supply to power plants

Sources say power ministry wants the sector to be given the same status as fertiliser

Reliance Industries has stopped gas supplies to power plants after its KG-D6 output hit an all-time low, prompting Power Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia to press for convening an urgent meeting of a ministerial panel to rework allocations.

KG-D6 output last month fell to 16.46 million standard cubic metres a day, not even sufficient to meet the requirement of urea-manufacturing fertiliser plants and LPG plants. Power plants are third on the priority list.

RIL, which was supplying a little less than one mmscmd of gas to power plants in February, completely stopped giving fuel to them in March, official sources said.

With at least 13 plants having aggregate electricity generation capacity of 5,200 Mw shutting because of lack of gas from KG-D6, Scindia has asked A K Antony, chairman of the empowered group of ministers (EGoM) on gas pricing and commercial utilisation of gas, to immediately convene a meeting of the panel to address the problem.

Sources said the power ministry wants the sector to be given the same status as fertiliser and whatever supplies of gas is available from KG-D6 should be distributed on a pro-rata basis among the two.

KG-D6 fields, which began production in April 2009, had hit a peak of 69.43 mmscmd in March 2010 before water and sand ingress shut down more than one-third of the wells. This peak output had 66.35 mmscmd from Dhirubhai-1 and 3 wells, the largest of the 18 gas discoveries on the KG-D6 block, and 3.07 mmscmd from MA field, the only oil discovery on the block.