The Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Ltd has shelved its proposed natural gas conversion project at Agartala in West Tripura. The company had planned to set up a gas-to-liquid plant to make use of the excess gas available in the state. But, according to the company's estimate, excess gas available would not be even 3 mmscmd to make the plant viable.
The company intended to set up either a synthetic crude plant at a cost of about Rs 3,800 crore or a synthetic fuel project at a cost around of Rs 4,500 crore. The company was searching for suitable technology for the project. While the Shell-Sasol combine has already commercialised the technology, the technology developed by the consortium of Rentech, Exxo and Syntroleum is still in the demonstration stage.