Delhi-based Great Eastern Energy Corporation Limited (GEECL) today commissioned the country's first natural gas pipeline based on coal bed methane (CBM) in the state and said it was planning to increase the network of CBM gas pipelines across the industrial belt in the eastern region to get industrial and domestic users.
GEECL recently filed its Draft Red Herring Prospectus (DRHP) with the Securities & Exchange Board of India (SEBI) in December 2008 to raise around Rs 800 crore but was yet to decide on the date.
The 11.8km CBM gas pipeline today connected its gas generation centre located at Shymadih to its central gas gathering station at Asansol in the Asansol Durgapur Development Authority (ADDA) industrial area, 210km west of Kolkata.
GEECL was drawing CBM from 23 wells linked to coal beds.
It aimed to tap 100 wells in another two years and 300-400 wells in three years time, said Prashant Modi, president and chief operating officer, GEECL.
According to a ball park estimate, 100 wells could produce 35 million cubic feet of methane gas per day.
The company said it had invested close to Rs 350 crore till date in the first phase of the project. Modi said “We will extend this CBM network and supply the industrial belt of Durgapur, Burnpur and Asansol and sell to domestic users”.
GEECL would extend the CBM pipeline to Kulti, and then tap the large commercial domestic market in Kolkata.
The 12km stretch of the CBM pipeline, from Asansol to Kulti, was 99 percent complete and would become operational in a month, while the third network link from Asansol to Durgapur would be operational in six months.
The company was allocated the CBM block of over 210 square kilometre in the Asansol area in 1994 by Coal India Limited (CIL).
In 2001, it entered into a 35 year contract with petroleum ministry, to extract methane gas from coal mines in the block.
The present commissioned pipeline was part of a vertically integrated network consisting of drilling, production, compression, transportation and distribution services will be catering to the requirements of customers in Burnpur and Asansol area initially.
GEECL had a franchisee agreement with Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) for distribution of gas through four co-branded stations for now.
GEECL was in talks with IISCO and Kulti units of SAIL for supply. This pipeline was capable of carrying one mmscmd of gas at 15 bar.
GEECL was today operating 31.97km of the pipeline linking 22 wells to the gas gathering station. It recently received the right of use (ROU) from National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) for laying the 57km pipeline from Asansol to Durgapur.
