Dabhol project to restart with LNG in October

New Delhi, Aug 24 (UNI) The Dabhol power project, reeling under the shortage of fuel naphtha, will commence operations by October this year with Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) as the main input, Union Power Minister Sushilkumar Shinde said here today.

''The power plant has been shut for some time and its re-commissioning would possibly commence by October 2006 with LNG as main input to generate power in it,'' Mr Shinde told reporters on the sidelines of the two-day Ninth Energy Summit beginning today.

He said efforts were on to source in the LNG.

Earier this week, the government also waived import duty on naphtha to be imported by Ratnagiri Gas and Power Pvt Ltd, the new owner of Dabhol plant, for use in generation of electricity.

The plant stopped generating power after running for nine weeks on July 4 this year, due to short supply and high costs of naptha as fuel.

It commenced production after five years on April 30 this year, after lenders to the project, including State Bank of India, took over the plant and renamed it Ratnagiri Gas&Power. GAIL (India), National Thermal Power and State Bank each hold 28 per cent of Ratnagiri Gas&Power.

The Union government owned GAIL India is on a lookout for LNG supplies beyond 2008.

GAIL India has been holding talks with gas suppliers from Qatar, Oman, Australia, Algeria and Myanmar to supply LNG to the project.

The project will need 2.1 MMTPA LNG for the total generation capacity of 2,184 MW.

The Power Minister also said the government has decided to enhance the power transmission capacity of Power Grid Corporation Ltd (PGCL) to 37,000 MW from existing capacity of 10,000 MW by 2012, to ensure that all five regions in the country get an assured power supply.

Inaugurating the summit organised by industry body Assocham, Mr Shinde said the government has no plans to create a parallel entity to PGCL.

In a bid to ensure that the Western region improves its power supply position, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh would be visiting Solapur in the first week of September to inaugurate a power distribution system, the capacity of which would be about 5000 MW, he said.

Assuring that efforts of the power ministry, will be strengthened to further realise the goal of power for all by 2012, he said about 41,000 MW capacity of power projects with total committed investment of over Rs 186,000 crore are under execution.

An estimated 2.34 crore unelectrified households below the poverty line shall also be given free electricity connections and a backbone network will be created to give access to all unelectrified rural households by 2009, said Mr Shinde.

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