Gujarat State Petronet Ltd, a subsidiary of Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation Ltd, is expecting to achieve financial closure for the 1,670-km Mehsana (Gujarat)-Bhatinda (Punjab) gas grid project in January 2012. The project, estimated to cost 3,500 crore, is being implemented by a special purpose vehicle, with 52 per cent stake of GSPL.

In addition to the natural gas sources in Mehsana, the proposed trunk pipeline will also connect the LNG terminals of Petronet LNG (Dahej) and Shell (Hazira) and others through the existing Dahej-Vijaipur Pipeline operated by GAIL (India) Ltd. IndianOil has a 20 per cent participatory interest in the project, while BPCL and HPCL have 11 per cent each.

The company has already transferred nearly 400 km of distribution network to GSPC Gas and is planning to add another 1,000 km of transmission network.

The Mehsana-Bhatinda segment is one of three lines of the total 4,000-km grid connecting the KG basin's natural gas sources at Mallavaram in Andhra Pradesh to Srinagar in J&K, which were auctioned by the Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board.

The GSPL-led consortium owns the right to construct and operate the Mallavaram- Vijaipur (Madhya Pradesh) connecting DVPL, Mehsana (Gujarat)-Bhatinda (Punjab), and Bhatinda-Srinagar (J&K) lines. Of these projects, the Mehsana-Bhatinda and Bhatinda-Jammu sections have been put into one SPV and the Mallavaram-Vijaipur project will be under a separate SPV.

The total estimated cost of all three projects is 12,500 crore.