Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Tuesday, Oct 21, 2003
Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Tuesday, Oct 21, 2003 |
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Corporate
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New Projects Mahanagar Gas chalks out Rs 350-cr expansion plan Archana Chaudhary
Mumbai , Oct. 20 MAHANAGAR Gas Ltd, the compressed natural gas supplier to the vehicles and households of Mumbai, plans to expand its operations as a gas retailer. The company has chalked out a Rs 350-crore plan to expand its operations to other cities beginning with Thane and Pune. The company is in talks with Shell and GAIL (India) to buy gas from Shell Hazira and Petronet's Dahej LNG terminals. The company has pinned its hopes on GAIL's Dahej-Hazira-Uran common-carrier gas pipeline expected to be completed by the end of 2004. The company supplies 0.9 million tonnes CNG to over 1.18 lakh homes and 97,000 vehicles in Mumbai out of the allocated 1.5 mt and is still working on spreading the network to the entire city. The additional demand would take its total gas requirement to between 1.5 and 2 million metric standard cubic metres per day, Mr Purwaha said. "Most of the expansion will be funded through a combination of internal resources and debt. Our study on gas demand in the regions says there is considerable potential for selling gas not only to households but also to commercial and small industrial customers," Mr A.K. Purwaha, Managing Director, Mahanagar Gas, told Business Line. He did not rule out the possibility of approaching the equity markets to raise funds for the plans. The entire roll out in Thane, Pune and other cities such as Kolhapur would take roughly 5-6 years, Mr Purwaha said. Mahanagar Gas is a 50 per cent joint venture of GAIL (India) and British Gas. The company, which has a Rs 450-crore worth 550-km pipeline network in Mumbai, will be the first amongst similar sized gas supplying companies, including Delhi-based Indraprastha Gas Ltd and Gujarat Gas Company Ltd, to begin such expansion. In Mumbai, the company plans to increase the number of its CNG outlets to 87 from the present 57 outlets by March 2004 with an additional 60,000 households being added to the already existing network.
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