Despite many hurdles, South Asia Gas Enterprise Pvt Ltd (SAGE) is not giving up its hope of building a deepwater gas pipeline from Oman to India. According to SAGE transportation cost of natural gas through deep water pipeline will be much less than transporting in the form of LNG. Also SAGE feels that burgeoning future energy requirement of India can be met only through such pipelines.
If the pipeline project gets the nod of the government SAGE has plans to lay a total of three natural gas pipelines over the next 10 years. These pipelines will be used to transport natural gas from countries like Qatar, Iran and Iraq to India. Each line will have a length of 1,300 km with a capacity to carry 31.5 MMSCMD per line. Each pipeline is estimated to cost $4.2 billion and additional investment is required to lay onshore pipeline in Middle East.
SAGE is planning to lay the pipeline on a ‘common carrier pipeline’ principle which will provide readymade gas transportation infrastructure to multiple gas sellers in the Middle East and gas buyers in India. SAGE will act as a transporter of gas and will charge transportation charge from buyers in India.
