Gail’s 100-km ‘safe’ pipeline by December-end

Rajahmundry: Gas major Gail is going to resume supply of natural gas to its customers in full scale in Krishna-Godavari basin and bey-ond from January next itself as the ongoing laying of 100 km distance underground pipeline will be completed by December-end.

In the aftermath of Gail’s gas pipeline explosion claiming several lives at Nagaram village on June 27, 2014, it has initiated a slew of measures to ensure safety during transportation of gas to its customers.

Accordingly, it is laying an underground pipeline for a distance of 100 km connecting Tatipaka to Kakinada Junction at a cost of over Rs 400 crores.

The pipeline will be running at 1.5 meters depth in the ground and its diameter is 24 inches unlike earlier practice of having only 18 inches diameter. The first phase of laying the pipeline covering more than 50 km distance is over and the second phase is in pr-ogress. Apart from other reasons that contributed for gas leak and subsequ-ent explosion at Nagar-am, the Gail bla-med poor quality of natural gas being supplied that resulted in corrosion of pipeline and the leak.

Gail procures gas from the firms like ONGC, Cairn Energy, Reliance and others and supplies about 5.15 MMSCMD normally through its 880 km gas pipeline network in KG basin to its customers. But following the mishap, the quantum of supply of gas to the firm has come down to about 3.55 MMSCMD and the authorities are expecting to enhance it further in the coming days.

As many as 28 custo-mers including NFCL, APGPCL, GVK, Spectr-um Power and others us-ed to get gas supply earlier. The authorities say that they are supplying gas to about 24 customers at present. As part of a slew of measures initiated to ensure safety, Gail is insisting on taking na-tural gas which complies with standard norms and accordingly, the ONGC is installing Gas De-hydration units to supply moisture free gas to the transported through Gail’s pi-pelines to the customers.

The Gail is also engaging a team of workers to take up line walk on the entire stretch of pipeline network in KG basin eve-ry day to physically verify any gas leaks in the pipeline with the help of lower explosive limit det-ectors and in case of any pressure drop in any specific section of pipeline, that will be detected at Central Monitoring Sys-tem located in Rajahmu-ndry and immediately all the necessary measures will be initiated to shut the valves in the affected area and stop transportation of gas to avoid any mishaps.

GAIL general manager M.V. Iyer said, "We are going to complete laying of pipeline between Tatipaka and Kakinada by end of 2015 and we expect to resume supply of gas to our clients in full scale soon after. We are according top priority for safety in our operations."