The Hindu Business Line : GAIL to set up LPG plants in Uzbekistan

What the pact entails
Capital investment in each LPG plant is put at $50-60 million.
Number of plants yet to be worked out.
These plants would produce LPG mainly for Uzbekistan.

New Delhi , May 1

The state-owned gas transmission and marketing company GAIL (India) Ltd is to set up liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) plants in Uzbekistan.

The LPG plants with a capacity of 0.1 million tonnes per annum (MMTPA) each will be set up in western parts of Uzbekistan along with Uzbekneftegaz, a national gas major of that country, a senior GAIL executive said. The estimated capital investment in each LPG plant was in the range of $50-60 million, the executive told Business Line.

The number of plants to be set up was yet to be worked out, he said, adding that these multiple gas-based LPG plants would cater mainly to the domestic market of Uzbekistan.

During the recent visit of the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, to Uzbekistan, GAIL and Uzbekneftegaz signed a memorandum of co-operation agreement. Under the agreement, the two companies would jointly pursue gas sector projects covering exploration and production, gas processing, production of petrochemicals as well as training and research & development. GAIL and Uzbekneftegaz had held preliminary discussions in early March on these specific project opportunities the executive said adding that with the signing of the agreement a joint working group (JWG) will be set up.

Working group meet

A detailed discussion for setting up of LPG plants was expected during the first meeting of the JWG to be held shortly. Uzbekneftegaz would also provide details of the specific project opportunities in E&P in Uzbekistan during this meeting. Preliminary discussions on E&P opportunities have already been held between the two companies.

UzbekNefteGaz is the state-owned holding company formed in 1998 when the Government of Uzbekistan merged nine companies in the oil and gas sector.

A natural gas major, the other key business operations of this company are gas processing, petrochemicals, refining, pipelines and marketing of hydrocarbon products. It has total pipelines network of more than 13,000 km. As a holding company, UNG has a number of foreign collaborators such as Gazprom & Lukoil (Russia), Kellogg, BSI & ABB Lummus Global (USA), Nova Chemicals (Canada), Toyo, Mitsui, Marubeni & Nisho Ivai (Japan), Technip (France), That-xa & Dunshen (China), and Petronas (Malaysia).

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