AP to press for cheap gas

Hyderabad, May 9 (UNI) Approving formation of the Krishna-Godavari Gas network for laying gas piplines, the Andhra Pradesh Cabinet today resolved to demand royalty in the form of gas from the Centre and put conditions to protect the state's interest before giving permission to gas explorers to lay pipelines.

The Cabinet decided to press for gas from RIL to existing 2000 MW gas-based power plants on or before June 2008 and another 2000 MW gas-based plant expected to be commissioned at Karimnagar at a concessional price of three US dollars per MMBTU, official sources said today.

It was decided that the State Government, as also the Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation Limited would hold 26 per cent share each and the Infrastructure Development Finance Corporation 48 per cent in the KG Gas Network.

''Before giving permissions for laying pipelines to RIL, we should press for laying city gas networks on non-exclusive basis in all towns to supply domestic gas at 50 per cent of equivalent cooking gas cost'', they said.

The Cabinet also felt the need for negotiating with the GSPCL, Cairn Energy and Oil and Natural Gas Corporation to supply gas at 2.97 per MMBTU to meet the needs of gas consumers in the state, before pipelines were laid.

The Union Government should take its share of profit only in the form of gas than in the form of revenue so that the gas pricing done by the suppliers of gas was reasonable and had a bearing on the cost incurred to discover and distribute gas with a reasonable profit, the Cabinet added.

UNI