A.K. Balyan, Managing Director and CEO of Petronet LNG Ltd has asked the Kerala Government to take a ‘positive initiative’ in completing the gas pipeline laying to northern Kerala.
The laying of pipelines, he said, is crucial for the gas sector and its completion would benefit the neighbouring Tamil Nadu and Karnataka in receiving natural gas from the ₹4,600 crore LNG Terminal in Kochi which was under utilised.
Speaking at a workshop on LNG here on Thursday, Balyan pointed out that the terminal’s capacity utilisation was only one per cent out of the total five million tonnes and the government should give top priority in completing the pipeline laying works for the successful utilisation of the LNG terminal at Puthuvypeen.
It may be recalled that the work on the over 1,000 km in the Kochi-Bangalore-Mangalore sector by the Gas Authority of India Ltd was stalled following public protest and the authorities could able to complete only less than 50 km as of today.
According to Balyan, India is far behind the developed countries as far as laying of pipelines is concerned. The US had a pipeline network of about 2.5 million km, while it was only 14,000 km in India.
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