A 30-inch, 128 km Surat-Vapi gas pipeline has been started by Gujarat State Petronet Ltd which is part of the Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation. The pipeline will provide transmission services to important markets in Gujarat from various supply sources.
The gas will be obtained from Shell's Hazira LNG terminal, Dahej PLL-LNG terminal, GSPC`s Niko Hazira fields, Cairn's Suvali fields, and Panna-Mukta-Tapti JV fields at Bombay High.
The corporation plans to lay about 2,200 km pipelines under the state's gas grid project. At present, GSPC has a network of 1,200 km that supplies gas to 26 customers to the state's industrial towns.
The Vapi and Valsad region has become the industrial hub of south Gujarat. It has over 3,000 manufacturing units that use fuels like HSD, LDO, LPG, lignite and coal. The high cost of the fuels make end-products non-competitive with respect to price in the international market. The cost of the final product will be considerably reduced by the use of natural gas.