Bids invited to set up CNG, piped gas facilities in 14 cities

The Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board (PNGRB) has invited bids for setting up retail facilities of compressed natural gas (CNG) for transport sector and piped natural gas (PNG) for households across 14 cities in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra and Punjab.

The last date of bidding for development of city gas distribution (CGD) networks is February 11, 2014. Bids have been invited by the oil regulator for Eranakulam in Kerala; Rangareddy Medak, Nalgonda and Khammam in Andhra Pradesh; Bangalore rural and urban districts in Karnataka; Raigarh, Pune and Thane in Maharashtra; Daman; Dadar & Nagar Haveli; Shahjahanpur in Uttar Pradesh; Guna in Madhya Pradesh; Panipat in Haryana and Amritsar in Punjab.

The bid documents will be sold from October 15, 2013, till February 4, 2014, and the bidding will close on February 11, 2014. Bidders have been asked to quote the tariff they will charge for the pipeline network to be laid in the city and the compression charge for dispensing CNG over 25 years. They have also been asked to quote the inch-kilometre of steel pipelines they will lay during first five years and the number of domestic consumers proposed to be connected by piped natural gas, according to the regulator.

The cities offered for bidding include those that PNGRB had offered in the fourth CGD round in September 2010. PNGRB had in the fourth round offered licences for Ernakulam in Kerala; Rangareddy/Medak, Nalgonda and Khammam in Andhra Pradesh; Alibag/Pen and Lonavala/Khapoli in Maharashtra; Guna in Madhya Pradesh and Shahjahanpur in Uttar Pradesh. To accelerate deployment of the CGD network in the country, PNGRB had invited bids in 2009 for 13 cities in first two rounds.

GAIL Gas Ltd. walked away with four of the six cities offered in round one. It won Sonepat in Haryana, Dewas in Madhya Pradesh, Meerut in Uttar Pradesh and Kota in Rajasthan while Bhagyanagar Gas Ltd. got Kakinada in Andhra Pradesh and DSM Infratech Mathura in Uttar Pradesh. In round two, Indian Oil Corporation-Adani Group combine walked away with Allahabad and Chandigarh, while Reliance Gas got Rajahmundry, Shahdol and Yanam in Andhra Pradesh.