New Delhi 

State gas utility GAIL (India) Ltd has laid a dedicated pipeline to supply natural gas to HPCL Mittal Energy Ltd’s (HMEL) Bathinda refinery in Punjab as it looks to take the environment-friendly fuel to all corners of the country.

This is a step towards making natural gas available to large customers, the company said in a statement.

The gas receiving station for the pipeline was inaugurated by Prabh Das, Managing Director and CEO, HMEL in the presence of Manoj Jain, Chairman and Managing Director, GAIL; Vartika Shukla, Chairman and Managing Director, Engineers India Ltd and Deepak Gupta, Director (Projects), GAIL, it said.

“The dedicated pipeline, which will supply 1 million standard cubic meters per day of gas to HMEL, has been laid at a cost of Rs 142 crore.

“The 44.26 km pipeline of 12 inch diameter (total capacity – 5 mmscmd) is a spur line of the 500 km Dadri-Bawana-Nangal Pipeline (DBNPL). The natural gas supply tap off is taken from GAIL receiving terminal at NFL, Bathinda,” it said.

GAIL is India’s largest natural gas transporting and marketing firm.

The DBNPL is a part of the National Gas Grid and runs from Dadri (Uttar Pradesh) through Yamunanagar (Haryana) to Nangal (Punjab), to meet energy demand of these northern states.

The pipeline will boost the supply of natural gas in the region, resulting in increased supply for domestic households, vehicles, commercial and industrial establishments.

It already supplies gas to various industrial customers and city gas networks in places like Ghaziabad, Bawana, Saharanpur, Yamunanagar and Mandi Gobindgarh, Nangal, Ludhiana, NFL Bhatinda and CGS Ludhiana.