ONGC Hazira fire: Customers feel the heat as supply gets crippled

Several industries including public sector power producer NTPC and gas distribution major GAIL had to face disruption in gas supplies following a massive fire that broke out at Oil & Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC)’s gas processing plant at Hazira near Surat in the early hours of Thursday.

NTPC, which has two gas-based power plants located at Kawas near Hazira and Gandhar near Bharuch, faced disruptions in gas supplies from ONGC Hazira. The public sector power producer has reportedly shut its 656 MW gas-based power plant at Kawas and 657 MW plant at Jhanor-Gandhar, sources privy to the incident informed.

City gas distribution (CGD) major GAIL also suffered a supply impact of 30 MMSCMD of natural gas into its north-western pipeline network (HVJ system). The supply was immediately shut off by the upstream major, to contain any further damage. “In the force majeure event triggered by the ONGC Hazira incident, supply cuts up to 40 per cent against current allocations has been imposed on the downstream customers. However, uninterrupted supplies are continued to be maintained to the CGD customers for supporting domestic kitchens (D-PNG) and public transportation (CNG),” GAIL said in a statement.

GAIL’s north-western pipeline grid supports about 80 MMSCMD and there is no damage to the network due to the incident at ONGC facilities at Hazira, it added.

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Farmers’ cooperative and fertiliser maker Krishak Bharati Cooperative Ltd (KRIBHCO)

faced impact of the ONGC fire incident as its capacity utilisation fell to about 50 per cent in the morning. The company initiated efforts to source gas from other local suppliers.

Extinguished by 7 am

The blaze, which was reported at around 3.05 am on Thursday due to gas leakage, was extinguished by 7.30 am.

There have been no casualty or injury in the plant, ONGC stated, adding that the cause of the incident is being investigated. On the first signs of gas leak and fire, emergency shutdown actuators were immediately activated and the plant was shut down.

Releasing a statement in the evening, ONGC informed, “All efforts are being made to resume normal operations at the earliest.”

“To ensure safety and as a measure to control fire, gas pipelines in the plant were depressurised in a controlled manner, through the flare stack. Large-scale depressurisation, actuated due to the shutdown of the units, resulted in blast-like noise,” the ONGC statement said.