Oil & Natural Gas Corporation Ltd.

Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) and Oil India (OIL) have joined hands separately with Bharat Petroleum (BPCL) and Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) for a foray into city gas distribution (CGD).ONGC and OIL are major producers of natural gas, they currently have no presence in its retailing and marketing, a field dominated by GAIL and its joint ventures.

Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board (PNGRB) invited bids for installing and running a CGD network in Asansol-Durgapur (in West Bengal), Bhavnagar, Gandhidham-Anjar, Bhuj-Mundra and Jamnagar (all in Gujarat), Ludhiana and Jalandhar (in Punjab) and Panipat (in Haryana). The bids will close on December 3.

Setting up a full-fledged CGD network with CNG stations and a pipeline for industrial and domestic consumers usually costs Rs 1,000-1,500 crore. The Company plans to take a CGD network to 200 cities by 2015. At present, Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Ahmedabad, Indore, Vijayawada, Vadodara and Surat have a CGD network.crackcrack