GAIL (India) Ltd.

GAIL India, state-owned gas utility has bagged rights to lay a 1,550-km natural gas pipeline from Surat in Gujarat to Paradip in Orissa, connecting west to east coast by beating Gujarat State Petronet. The company bid an astonishingly low pipeline tariff of Rs 0.01 (one paisa) per million British thermal unit to bag the project.

Before this aggressive bidding by GAIL, it has lost bid for the previous three major pipelines - Mehsana-Bhatinda, Mallavaram-Bhopal-Bhilwara and Panipat-Jammu-Srinagar. The bi-directional pipeline will have a capacity to transport up to 60 million standard cubic meters per day of gas. It is reported that the 36-inch pipeline would cost Rs 5,500 crore, adding this will be the first pipeline in the country originating and terminating at a port.

The new pipeline will instigate from Mora in Gujarat which is a major node/terminal of GSPL gas grid pipeline network and will end at the Indian Oil Corp's under-construction 15 million tonnes refinery at Paradip. The pipeline is to pass through Jalgaon, Nagpur, Raipur and Bhuvaneshwar. It will traverse 1,500 km, with the main line and 124 km spur lines covering the states of Gujarat, Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh and Orissa.