The Andhra Pradesh Government will make a strong case to the Centre for supply of more gas with a view to ramp up its gas-based power generation to a tune of 9,376 MW from the present 2,770 MW.
The Government has already recommended to the Centre to allocate 31.86 million cubic metres per day (MCMD) of gas additionally for the 6,606 MW more to be generated by nine projects. The demand would be taken up strongly when the Empowered Group of Ministers to look into gas allocations was constituted. However, a lot also depended on the outcome of the court case between Ambani brothers on sharing of gas production in KG basin, the State Assembly was informed by Finance Minister K. Rosaiah on Monday.
The nine projects to meet the 6,606 MW generation include GVK, Vemagiri, Gowthami and Spectrum – all are capacity expansion units of their existing Stage –II projects with a demand for 3.99 MCMD of gas. The remaining eight projects with a combined demand of 27.87 MCMD gas are : AP Genco unit at Nedunur in Karimnagar district Sriba, RVK NSG Limited, Silk Road Kakinada, LVS Visakhapatnam, Lanco Kondapalli, Spectrum and Joint Venture AP Gas Power Corporation at Vijjeswaram.
Mr. Rosaiah said the nine gas-based projects were lined up in addition to as many existing projects that generated 2,770 MW with 12.97 MCMD of gas which was supplied by Reliance (9.47 MCMD) and Oil and Natural Gas Commission (3.5 MCMD). The existing projects operated at a plant load factor of over 90 per cent. Including the 31.86 MCMD, he estimated the future requirement of State to go up to 80 MCMD to meet industrial requirement, cooking gas for cities and private power projects.
The Government estimated an investment of Rs. 10,000 crore for Hyderabad and Rs. 5,000 crore for Vijayawada to supply cooking gas to these cities over pipeline. It would consider participating in the bids to drill gas from KG basin when they were invited next by involving AP Gas Infrastructure Corporation.
Leader of Opposition N. Chandrababu Naidu demanded the Government move a resolution in the House seeking 50 per cent share in royalty paid to the Centre for gas exploration in KG basin. Mr. Rosaiah rejected it as the fixation of royalty was done during the Telugu Desam Party’s government.
