ONGC submits before nature's fury

Leading companies like Reliance Industries Ltd, Essar Steel, IFFCO, Kribhco, and NTPC Ltd were on Tuesday forced to downscale production after the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation suspended supply of natural gas from its gas processing station at Hazira on account of incessant rains.

ONGC closed its plant at 01.53 am, after it was flooded with 4-5 feet of water released from the Ukai dam. By morning, the boundary wall had collapsed, and the water level at the plant rose to ten feet.

Subsequently, the offshore platforms of ONGC's Bassein field and the joint venture fields of Panna-Mukta and Tapti, which supplied 40 million standard cubic metre of gas per day to the Hazira plant, were closed.

The current gas availability in India stands at 91 mmscmd. As the Hazira plant feeds Gas Authority of India (India) Limited's Hazira-Vijaypur-Jagdishpur pipeline, this has impacted a number of industrial units drawing gas from the pipeline. Restoring supplies on the pipeline could take anywhere from 2-3 days to a week, GAIL officials said.

Reliance Industries Ltd, which has a petrochemical complex at Hazira, confirmed to Business Standard that two of the 14 plants at the complex had been shutdown following the ONGC decision.

National Thermal Power Corporation's Kawas power project, and Kribhco's fertiliser unit at Hazira, too, reduced their capacity, gradually moving towards closure. Essar Steel reduced production by 40 to 50 per cent at Hazira. Essar also cut down the power supply from its independent power project from 515 MW to around 100

MW, to fulfill its captive requirements.

GAIL (India) was asked to ration supplies, with the transport sector (CNG in Delhi), and power and fertiliser units getting top priority. Company officials said they had started pushing leftover gas, known as 'linepack,' into the pipeline for its category one customers, including IndianOil's Mathura refinery, IPCL, the heavy water plant of the Atomic Energy Commission, and small and medium-sized industries located near the Agra and Firozpur area, which get supply under the Supreme Court order in connection with the Taj Mahal case.

But the immediate future was bleak for category two and category three customers on the HVJ pipeline, the company officials said. As naphtha and furnace oil, the two alternatives for gas, were not available in enough quantity in the market, these companies could find it difficult to switch to other fuels.

Meanwhile, 18 mmscmd of regassified LNG from Petronet LNG continued to be fed into the pipeline. To avert a crisis, a plan has been worked out to pump in more of regassified LNG through Petronet LNG's Dahej terminal.

According to sources close to the developments, Petronet LNG has a full 2.5-million-tonne tank, and a ship with another one million tonne anchored at Dahej. The latter would be offloaded on Thursday and Friday. The regassified LNG will be available for customers in Haryana and Uttar Pradesh.