Power plants Andhra Pradesh too feel the heat

Rajahmundry: Due to the pipeline being shut down, the ONGC has closed down 70 of its 152 on-shore wells in KG basin and is working on a three-pronged plan.

Full restoration of the pipeline will take six to eight  months, which is part of the long-term plan.

ONGC, meanwhile, has closed down its wells in Adavipalem, Mori, Kesinapally West, Tatipaka, Pasarlapudi and Ponnamanda, most of them in the Amalapuram area, which produce 80 per cent of

ONGC’s gas in KG on land. The wells of Gopavaravam, Kaikuluru, Lingala and few other areas in Krishna and West Godavari are operating.

The entire GAIL pipeline network was shut down after the June 27 incident for safety reasons and ONGC had begun closing its wells from then.

GAIL has approximately 870 km of natural gas pipeline in  Andhra Pradesh. The installed capacity of the network is 15.9 MMSCMD of natural gas, while only about five MMSCMD is being supplied as sources like ONGC and RIL are not in full production.

Post the pipeline explosion, GAIL has reduced the supplies to 0.2 MMSCMD of natural gas as safety checks are being carried out.

The major consumers of natural gas from GAIL, like Nagarajuna Fertilisers and gas-based power plants like GVK, Reliance, Spectrum Power, GMR, APGPDC and Lanco, are hit. The Steel Exchange

India Limited based at Kothapet in Mandapet (steel melting and power plant division), which is supplied 40,000 cubic metres per day from ONGC through GAIL has also been affected.

The Srivastava power plant at Tatipaka is also hit due to non-supply of 10,000 cubic metres of gas.

The fertiliser production at NFCL is also suffering and it has stopped production of 4,600 tonnes of urea per day as its not getting supply.

A sources in ONGC said, “We have 152 operational wells of both gas and oil. Most of the gas wells, situated in Konaseema, are closed post the incident.”

When contacted, ONGC asset executive director P. Krishna Rao said that the production of 27 lakh cubic metres per day of gas was being held back and it would be made operational after the GAIL pipeline was restored.

Industry sources said though there is a flexibility built into the system to maintain alternate minimum supply to consumers, the entire network has been shut down for the time being as a precautionary measure.