Natural gas flowed into Reliance Industries' [Get Quote] East-West gas pipeline on Thursday. The pipeline, spanning across 1,440 km, is the country's longest gas transportation pipeline from Kakinada in Andhra Pradesh to Bharuch in Gujarat.

The pipeline will transport gas from the world's largest gas discovery at the Krishna-Godavari (KG) basin in the Bay of Bengal to Jamnagar in Gujarat, where RIL is setting up the largest petroleum refinery in the world.

RIL on Thursday successfully test-fired gas into the first section of the pipeline from Valsad to Ankot in Gujarat after many weeks of experimental dry runs and testing using liquids, said sources close to the development.

Gas will flow into the next section from Valsad to Kalyan in Maharashtra within the next 20 days, they added.

"The entire pipeline will be tested with gas and ready for operation in two to three months. We are trying to synchronise it with completion of our refinery at Jamnagar," said an official.

Sources said the development would help RIL to advance the commissioning of its refinery and petrochemical complex in Jamnagar, before the earlier announced timeline of December 2008. More than 80 per cent of the civil and mechanical works have been completed at the Jamnagar site, which houses about 40 different units.

Some of the smaller units have already started trial run and it would take about five to six months for fully commissioning the complex. RIL can use the natural gas available from the KG basin to fire the captive power plants required to run the refinery and for heating to converting crude oil into various petroleum products.

Though RIL has completed more than 90 per cent of the pipeline work, including mechanical tests, a 1.5-km stretch in Sikhapur and another 20-km stretch in Varsi, Mahashtra, are yet to be completed due to land acquisition issues. "Local land owners are demanding three to four times the market price for the land and RIL is trying to to sort out the issue," they added.

An RIL spokesperson declined to comment on the developments. The pipeline, under construction for the last three years, will be tested with gas in 3-4 phases -- from Valsad to Kalyan, then up to Karnataka and in the last leg, up to Kakinada in Andhra Pradesh, where it begins.

The East-West pipeline, being implemented by the Mukesh Ambani Group company, Reliance Gas Transportation Infrastructure, had entered into a tie-up with Gujarat State Petronet [Get Quote] to transport gas from Bhadbhut in Bharuch to RIL's refinery and petrochemical complex in Jamnagar.

RIL will bring gas up to Bharuch and GSPL will transport the same using its existing pipeline between Bharuch and Rajkot and through new pipelines laid up to Jamnagar.

RIL's plans are to extract about about 40 million standard cubic metres (mmcmd) of natural gas a day during the initial years of production, with peak production of up to 80 mmscmd by 2011.

The K-G gas basin, discovered in 2002, is the largest-ever gas find in the world. The East-West pipeline will also be connected with GAIL's Hazira-Vijaipur-Jagdishpur and Dahej-Vijaipur pipeline network at Ankot in Gujarat. Apart from this, it will be networked with Dahej-Uran andDabhol-Panel pipeline network at Mashkal in Maharashtra.

At Kakinada, the pipeline will receive gas from the K-G basin at Oduru in Andhra Pradesh. More than 1,500 workers, including skilled workers from China, were working to lay the pipeline, coordinated by two offices in Mumbai and Kakinada.

Mukesh Ambani's RIL is also fighting a high-profile legal case with his brother Anil Ambani's Reliance Natural Resources [Get Quote] on sale of gas from the KG basin.

The case is scheduled to come up for the next hearing in the Mumbai high court on July 22, 2008.