State-run power utility NTPC today started receiving natural gas from Reliance Industries’ eastern offshore KG- D6 fields at the government-approved price of $4.2 per mBtu price. NTPC’s Anta plant in the NCR region this morning started receiving 0.6 million standard cubic metres per day (mscmd) of KG-D6 gas, industry sources said.
KG-D6 gas will replace the costly LNG that the plant currently uses and will save Rs 150 crore in power generation cost annually. The government had allocated NTPC 2.67 mscmd of gas from KG-D6 fields but the company had on September 23 signed Gas Sales and Purchase Agreements (GSPA) for less than one-fourth of the earmarked volumes.
NTPC had signed contracts with RIL to buy 0.13 mscmd of KG-D6 for its Faridabad power plant in Haryana, 0.03 mscmd for Anta in Rajasthan and 0.45 mscmd for its Dadri unit in Uttar Pradesh.
However, due to constraints in state-run gas utility GAIL India Ltd’s pipeline to transport KG-D6 gas, the 0.61 mscmd would be consumed at Anta plant for the time being, sources said.
The production of gas from RIL’s KG basin has gone up to 45 msmcd but is still short of its present capacity of 65 mscmd. Sources said, of the 2.67 mscmd originally allocated by the government to NTPC, its Kawas power plant in Gujarat was to get 1.75 mscmd and Gandhar 0.30 mscmd. But the state-run utility does not want to use KG-D6 gas, as it is seeking from RIL gas for expansion projects at the two sites at the price of $2.34 per mBtu that RIL had committed in a 2004 tender.
