20 districts of Rajasthan to get gas through pipes
Piped gas is no longer a dream for Rajasthan. A total of 20 districts of the state were granted authorization for the development of city gas distribution (CGD) system to various entities. According to officials the union ministry of petroleum and natural gas had auctioned off in two rounds (13 districts in 9th CGD round and 7 districts in 10th round) and was able to find distributors for 20 districts in the state. The districts that found distributors are Barmer, Jaisalmer and Jodhpur districts (a consortium of AG&P, LNG Marketing Pvt Ltd & Atlantic Gulf & Pacific); Alwar (other than Bhiwadi), Jaipur, Kota (except area already authorized), Baran and Chittorgarh (only Rawatbhata block) by Torrent Gas Pvt Ltd; Bhilwara, Bundi and Chittorgarh (other than Rawatbhata) and Udaipur districts by Adani Gas Limited; Dholpur district by Essel Gas Company Limited; Banswara-Dungarpur, Jalore and Sirohi districts by Gujarat Gas Limited, Ajmer, Pali and Rajsamand Districts by IGL. Till Oct 2018, Kota was the only city in the state authorised for retail gas activities (CNG & PNG) which was developed as a model city by introducing various innovative measures by Rajasthan government’s agency, Rajasthan State Gas Limited (RSGL). In spite of Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board (PNGRB)’s authorization of various districts, the activities of CGD industry haven’t picked-up because of the complex nature of the industry requiring supporting role by the state government in various activities like permissions, land allocation in stipulated time frame and to synchronize with the state’s master plan. But the new state government has taken the initiative in implementing the request of PNGRB and the CGD industry in creating the enabling policies in ensuring the timely allotment of land, granting of permissions, at the shortest possible time of 15 to 30 days. Sudarsan Sethi, additional chief secretary, mines & petroleum, claimed, “Rajasthan is all set to become a front runner in adopting the reform measures and incorporating rapid development, ensuring quality life and to create 20,000 to 30,000 new jobs by 2022 in CGD sector alone.” He said Rajasthan has identified “clean energy” as the key agenda for the industrial development and meeting the socio-economic aspirations of the people of the state.
CGD projects in Jharkhand are worth Rs 1,200 crore: Official
The city gas distribution (CGD) projects in Jharkhand’s Seraikela-Kharswan and West Singhbhum districts are worth around Rs 1,200 crore, a senior official of Gail Gas Limited said here on Thursday. Gail Gas Limited is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Gail (India) limited Under the CGD project Gail Gas would supply CNG for transport sector, Piped Natural Gas for household and Industries and Commercial units, the official said. Jharkhand Food, Public Distribution and Consumer Affair, Saryu Roy Thursday inaugurated a customer meet and awareness campaign for city gas distribution project here. General Manager (marketing) of Gail Gas V Gautam said Seraikela-Kharswan CGD project will cover 2,657 sq km area and will have 41 CNG stations. Some 2.20 lakh households will be connected with pipe natural gas over a period of 8 years, he said, adding it will benefit 10.65 lakhs of populations. Stating that the supply of piped natural gas to industries and commercial units will help in reduction of pollution in the region, Gautam said the Seraikela-Kharswan project will start functioning by end of this year. About the West Singhbhum CGD project, he said it would cover 7,224 km area in the district and will have 5 CNG stations. Approximately 6,028 households will be connected with piped natural gas in the first phase, he said, adding that it will benefit 15 lakh population. The main source pipeline for the CGD projects will be GAILs Jagdishpur-Haldia-Dhamra-Bokaro pipeline, he said. Apart from Seraikela-Kharswan and West Singhbhum districts, he said GGL has also been authorized to supply piped natural gas in Giridih and Dhanbad districts, where work will start from this year end. Currently, GGL operates 70 to 80 CNG stations, supply piped natural gas to 3,800 commercial units and 600 industrial houses in the country. Gautam said GGL was likely to record a turnover of Rs 5,200 crore in the financial year 2018-19.
Three groups bid to build 1.4 bn euro gas pipeline in Bulgaria
Three consortiums have submitted bids in a 1.4 billion euro ($1.58 billion) tender to build a gas pipeline in Bulgaria, state-owned gas network operator Bulgartransgaz said on Thursday. The Balkan country plans to have the 484-km (303 mile) pipeline from its border with Turkey to Serbia operational by the end of 2019 to transport Russian gas from the second leg of the TurkStream pipeline to southeastern Europe.
India wants to keep Iran oil purchases at 300,000 bpd in extended waiver: Report
India wants to keep buying Iranian oil at its current level of about 300,000 barrels per day (bpd), as it negotiates with the Washington about extending a sanctions waiver past early May, two sources in India with knowledge of the matter said. India has reduced its purchases of Iranian oil but has been in talks on extending its sanctions waiver, a senior India official said in January. New Delhi is asking to be allowed to still buy Iranian oil at current levels of around 1.25 million tonnes per month, or about 300,000 barrels per day, the sources said. The United States reimposed sanctions against Iran in November last year in a dispute over Tehran’s nuclear and missile ambitions, after President Donald Trump pulled Washington out of a 2015 deal between Iran and six world powers. Although the United States granted Iran’s biggest customers – China, India, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Turkey, Italy and Greece – waivers that have allowed them to continue limited imports, Washington is putting pressure on governments to eventually cut imports to zero. The current round of waivers expires around May 4. Vincent Campos, a spokesman at the US State Department’s energy bureau, did not confirm that India was asking the United States to renew its waiver, but said talks are ongoing with the eight consumers of Iran’s oil that received waivers in November with the aim of eventually cutting the imports to zero. “We continue to have bilateral discussions,” with each of the countries including India, Campos said. Iran, a member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec), exported almost 3 million bpd of oil at its pre-sanctions peak, but supply has dwindled to around 1.25 million bpd since the start of the year, shipping data in Refinitiv showed. Talks with Washington on extending the waiver slowed due to the US government shutdown that extended through January, one of the Indian sources said. Talks have now resumed and India wants to get clarity before general elections scheduled in May, the source said. No immediate comment was available from India’s oil and external affairs ministries. India’s move to seek extended sanctions exemptions comes as Washington plans to end preferential trade treatment for India that allows duty-free entry for up to $5.6 billion worth of its exports to the United States. India is the biggest beneficiary of the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP), which dates from the 1970s, and ending its participation would be the strongest punitive action the United States has taken against the country since Trump took office. Iran was India’s seventh biggest oil supplier in January compared with its position as third biggest a year ago before the reimpostion of sanctions.
GAIL to invest Rs 1,200 crore for Seraikela-Khersawan PNG supply
The Gail Gas Limited, a 100 per cent subsidiary of GAIL, on Thursday announced investment of Rs 1,200 crore in adjoining Seraikela-Kharswan district for construction of a network to provide piped natural gas to 2.20 lakh households and building 41 compressed natural gas (CNG) stations within the next eight years. GAIL said the first phase of the project is likely to start in the first quarter of 2020 and will cater to the needs of industrial plants, commercial buildings, transport sector and households covering an area of 2,657 sq km. The network of 600 inch km will be laid in the district under the City Gas Distribution Project and will benefit the 10.65 lakh population in urban and suburban areas. “The work of laying the mother pipeline for sourcing gas from Jagdishpur in Uttar Pradesh will get complete in the next nine months following which networking will be done in the following next three months. Subsequently, gas supply to consumers will follow,” V Gautam, GAIL Gas general manager (marketing) told media persons on Thursday. Informing that GAIL Gas has bagged the licence for operation in four districts of Giridih, Dhanbad, West Singhbhum and Seraikela-Kharswan for a period of 25 years, Gautam said in West Singhbhum, an area of 7,224 km will be covered with five CNG stations and approximately 6,028 households will be connected with piped natural gas in the first phase. An investment of Rs 350 crore will be made on building networking system in the mineral rich district. He further said GAIL Gas will invest Rs 2,000 crore in the four identified districts by 2027 for establishing pipeline network and will give direct employment to 400 qualified youths. GAIL Gas’s deputy GM (business development) Ajay Sinha said, “A network of 100 inch kms will be laid in West Singhbum and will benefit 15 lakh population.” The company’s chief manager Vinay Krishna Srivastava added, “Once the detailed project report is ready for Giridih and Dhanbad, we will share the details.”
Ennore LNG terminal to help IOC fast-track city gas project
India’s first east coast LNG import terminal at Ennore in Tamil Nadu will help state-owned Indian Oil Corp (IOC) fast-track its city gas distribution plans, said Wood Mackenzie. The 5 million tonne per annum (MTPA) liquefied natural gas (LNG) import and regasification terminal, built by IOC at a cost of Rs 5,150 crore, was commissioned earlier this week. “IOC has already secured captive customers for 2 MTPA of capacity. The Ennore terminal will also help fast-track IOC’s city gas distribution plan, as gas from the terminal will be supplied to consumers around Chennai and Madurai,” Wood Mackenzie’s senior analyst Kaushik Chatterjee said in a report. India plans to double its LNG import and regasification capacity to 56.5 MTPA by 2025 to meet the energy needs of a fast-growing economy. In order to supply natural gas to various consumers, IOC is laying a 1244-km pipeline for evacuation of gas from Ennore terminal. The pipeline from the terminal will go up to Madurai, Trichy and Tuticorin in Tamil Nadu and branch out to Bengaluru via Hosur in Karnataka. Imported gas at the terminal will meet fuel requirement of Chennai Petroleum Corp, Madras Fertilisers, Tamil Nadu Petroproducts and Manali Petrochemicals. Ennore LNG terminal is part of India’s plan to raise the share of natural gas in the country’s energy basket to 15 per cent by 2030 from current 6.2 per cent. “In the longer term, Ennore could become integrated with India’s national gas network via a pipeline to Vijayawada or Kakinada in Andhra Pradesh. “Historically, delays in intra-state pipeline construction have impeded gas and LNG usage in India. The pipeline connecting the Kochi regasification terminal in Kerala to Mangalore in Karnataka is a glaring example,” Chatterjee said. IOC, he said, has additional plans to connect remaining refineries to gas pipelines, which will likely at least double its gas demand. IOC has signed a 0.7 MTPA contract with Mitsubishi for 20 years, with supply coming from Cameron LNG in the US. “We believe the commissioning of Ennore may also lead IOC to source more LNG directly rather than via Petronet LNG Ltd,” he said. India has four LNG import and regasification terminals on the west coast — 15 MTPA Dahej plant in Gujarat operated by Petronet LNG , Shell’s 5 MTPA Hazira terminal in the same state, GAIL’s 1.2 MTPA plant at Dabhol in Maharashtra and Petronet’s 5 MTPA terminal at Kochi in Kerala. “Indian regas capacity had constrained imports in recent years. Both Dahej and Hazira operated at maximum levels through much of 2018. The commissioning of Ennore will be the first in a series of regas projects coming online in 2019; Mundra (in Gujarat) and Jaigarh FSRU are next,” the consultancy said. Another terminal is under construction at Dhamra in Odisha and is expected to be completed in 2022. Furthermore, Dahej’s capacity is being increased by 2.5 MTPA to 17.5 MTPA , while the completion of the Kochi pipeline and Dabhol breakwater is also likely by 2020. “Once all these terminals and enhancements are completed, India’s regas capacity will reach 56.5 MTPA by 2025 from the existing 25.5 MTPA. Beyond this, India’s ability to import significant volumes of LNG could be enhanced further if several other proposed regas terminals proceed,” it said.
Five Ways AI & Advanced Analytics Is Used In The Oil & Gas Industry
As one of the fastest growing and demand-driven industry, the oil and natural gas sector has witnessed tremendous expansion in terms of technological advancements. Despite the demand for cleaner energy sources, the natural gas continues to be preferred by a large number of countries with major governments and private players looking into emerging technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning for enhancing the working of offshore and onshore drilling equipment and even to check the health of oil rigs. In India, vendors like Wipro has been closely working with domestic and international oil and gas companies to provide AI and data analytics solutions to business to tap into new avenues of growth. Through their AI and automation platform, Wipro Holmes, the company has been helping leading LNG company gain operational and business insight. Speaking to a leading tech portal about the Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited’s (HPCL) digital strategy, S.T Sathiavageeswaran, Executive Director- Information Systems said, “HPCL is effectively using analytics for management dashboards, reporting and decision making, data visualization, and geo map feature for sales analytics. In addition, HPCL has designed and implemented business analytics to provide industry performance analysis and insights with geographical analytical capability for the country, State, Districts, Zonal and Regional level comparisons.” In another interesting use case, HPCL, invested pre-seed capital in AI startup Tranzmeo, which uses AI and ML to analyse machine behaviour and predict anomalies. In this article, we look at these technologies that are aiding this process and the effect of it in the industry. 1) Automating tasks: The oil and gas industry is highly labour-intensive and these workers are employed in a highly precarious condition. According to a study by McKinsey, which observed the changing trends in the oil and gas industry, emerging technologies like AI and ML can automate 60-90 per cent of the routine tasks while identifying the best practices. By doing so, the lesser number of people are prone to danger while the employers have a larger benefit of reducing human error and increasing efficiency. Due to the increased level of AI/ML applications in the field, it is believed that the industry will employ more PhD-level data scientists than geologists in the coming years. The study then revealed that the industry could save as much as $50 billion in the coming decade, just by deploying AI and ML solutions. 2) For Hydrocarbon production: One of the primary task associated with oil drilling is hydrocarbon exploration, which requires companies to locate oil and natural gas beneath the Earth’s surface. By leveraging the capabilities of autonomous bots and drones, industry players want to replace humans while accessing extreme environments or high-risk regions. In a 2013 challenge, a French oil and gas company, Total opened up a competition for the public to design an AI-powered autonomous surface robot which could meet the specific needs of hydrocarbon exploration and production activities. The primary requirement from the bots was to create a smart report. “It must be able to not only read and record values from instruments, but also analyze any inconsistencies and independently deal with unexpected situations, such as detecting whether the readings are within the range of normal functioning, whether the terrain matches the 3D graphical map of the site, and so on,” the company said in their website 3) ESP monitoring: To maximise output, most offshore pumps use electric submersible pumps (ESPs), which considered to be one of the most efficient ways of extracting oil from deep within the earth. To optimise its functioning, Siemens recently rolled out a product which coupled AI and cloud for real-time monitoring of these ESPs, that are mostly installed in harsh condition and are prone to corrosion from seawater and deep water pressure. Siemen’s predictive maintenance solution called AI4ESP, has been designed specially to monitor ESPs remotely. By facilitating real-time analysis multiple data, the product was able to “provide a digital map of ESP operations, effectively creating smart pumps at the heart of a digital oil field.” By deploying the technology, the AI systems could detect anomalies by flagging off deviation and by sending alerts to the operators.”An anomaly in the data source detected by the AI system can reveal a potential failure several days before the actual failure of the ESP mechanism,” a representative of the company wrote in an article. It further increased the operations of the ESPs by providing behaviour labelling and real-time feedback loop between an ESP and its cloud-based operating profile 4) Production Optimisation – The application of AI cut across various verticals of the oil and gas industry. As oil pricing is highly fluctuating, the need for companies to optimise their production is important. Further, it is managed through enhancing an oil well’s life, which is in turn affected by factors like flow rates and pressure, among other things. Thus by using AI and ML, the algorithms can collect data from numerous sensors and other devices to give a real-time update thus providing the optimum operating environment. “The value of AI and ML can be applied in a different statistical model, which can help in improving asset management decision. Effective adoption of these learning techniques will be dependent on the integration, with data visualization and effective user interface design,” ” Vinodkumar Raghothamarao, Director Consulting, wrote in a leading website. 5) Reservoir management: With reservoir forming the core of oil and gas production, the degree of maintenance and optimisation that it requires is very high. Important data from the reservoir equipment and integration of various aspects surrounding the facility including information on geology, reservoir engineering, production techniques can be used to feed the AI systems can improve the functioning of reservoirs. “Fuzzy logic, expert systems and artificial networks are used to accurately characterize reservoir for optimum production output. Complex logics are required to derive a relationship between critical functions like algorithms defining the relationship between seismic attributes, and target lithological properties such as well logs and sand properties,”
PH’s AG&P gets rights to put up natural gas facilities in India
Atlantic, Gulf and Pacific Co. of Manila Inc. (AG&P) continues to expand its footprint in India as regulators granted the engineering firm rights to put up natural gas facilities and provide services to consumers in nine more concession areas. The Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board (PNGRB) in New Delhi on March 1 announced that AG&P and its unit AG&P LNG Marketing Pte. Ltd. won contracts for nine out of 50 geographical areas in the 10th bidding round for natural gas concessions across India. In this latest bidding round, AG&P won contracts to build the infrastructure network and to deliver gas to consumers in 23 districts spread out in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala. In a statement, PNGRB said results of the latest round of bidding heralds an era that sees “the availability of convenient, environment-friendly and cheaper natural gas for more than 70 percent of the country’s population spread across 27 States and Union Territories.” The regulatory agency said that AG&P, along with 11 other entities that won contracts, are expected within the next eight years to provide more than two billion household connections for piped natural gas and install 3,578 compressed natural gas stations for the transport sector, in additional to building a total of 54,177 inch-kilometers of steel pipeline. “Further, the entities would be authorised to supply natural gas to industrial and commercial units in their respective (geographical areas) as per the limits provided in the CGD (city gas distribution) Authorisation Regulations,” PNGRB said. In the 9th bidding round conducted in November 2018, AG&P won the rights to build LNG facilities in the districts Kanchipuram and Ramanathapuram, which are both in Tamil Nadu. AG&P chief executive Joseph M. Sigelman told the INQUIRER that the company invested P1.6 billion in 2016 to upgrade its two manufacturing facilities in Batangas to meet rising global demand for its services. “AG&P has a dedicated LNG engineering team in Alabang, Muntinlupa, to support the company’s expanding portfolio of LNG projects in Asia, Africa and South America,” Sigelman said. “This team complements (our) global engineering operations in Houston, Texas,” he said. “More than 30 highly qualified Filipino engineers with gas industry experience have been hired in the last year.”
India imports more oil in 5 years of Modi govt; 10% import cut by 2022 remains a dream
India has further strengthened its position of being a net importer of oil during the five years of the Modi government, floundering on an ambitious plan that entailed reducing countrys import dependency of oil by 10 per cent by 2022. As per government’s estimates, the country’s import dependency on oil has increased from 78.3 per cent of total consumption in 2014-15 to settling at a new high of 83.7 per cent in the 10-month period of FY19. The increase has also been consistent with dependence on imported oil increasing in all the five years of the government with the number being 80.6 per cent in FY16, 81.7 in FY17 and 82.9 in FY18. Ironically, the country imported more oil to meet its domestic demand in the past five years even though Prime Minister Narendra Modi had set out a road map for reducing India’s crude oil imports by 10 per cent by 2022 in March 2015. “We cannot be living in a dream world. India has not been able to raise domestic production of oil and gas for the past decade. Some of its ageing blocks are now showing signs of fatigue while new discoveries and production is not coming online. If we aspire to move of the path of self-sufficiency, efforts to boost domestic production should go on a war footing,” said a former head of country largest state-owned explorer ONGC, asking not to be named. Though the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas (MoPNG) has taken several policy measures to ramp up domestic production with reforms such as the Hydrocarbon Exploration Licensing Policy, or HELP, and taking a series of de-bottlenecking measures in NELP, or New Exploration Licensing Policy, and pre-NELP regimes, the results are yet to show on the ground. What is frustrating is that country’s oil production has stagnated around 35 million tonnes (MT) since 2007-08 onwards while domestic gas output has actually fallen for the past four years. Over the past 19 years, from 1998-99 to 2017-18, India’s crude oil production increased only by 8.8 per cent from 32.8 MT to 35.77 MT. The decline has come at a time when consumption is rising, pushing the country to rely more on imports. Higher imports have also meant rising import bill, pushing up the current account deficit. As per estimates, crude import bill in FY19 is expected to shoot up by close to 50 per cent to $ 130 billion, twice the level what government agencies were earlier projecting. If the oil import bill reaches closer to $ 130 billion mark, it would be close to levels experienced in FY13 and FY14 when international oil prices had skyrocketed and hovered over $100 a barrel for most of the year. The Indian basket of crude at present is just about $ 65 a barrel. This will make oil import bill for FY 19 the highest in the five years of the Modi government and very close to high import bill during UPA-II when the crude oil prices had breached all records to touch close to $ 140 a barrel mark.
PM Narendra Modi launches Rs 5,150 crore Ennore LNG terminal in Tamil Nadu
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday laid foundation stones for five national highway projects in Tamil Nadu worth Rs 5,010 crore and the Rs 5,150 crore state-of-the-art terminal for import of Liquefied Natural Gas at Ennore near Chennai. At a function in Kilambakkam near Chennai, Modi inaugurated via video-conferencing two road projects, including two-laning of 122 km section of NH-38 that goes via Vellore, Thiruvannamalai and Viluppuram districts, and four-laning of 32km Avinashi-Tirupur-Avinashipalayam section of NH-381, in Tirupur. district Foundation stones were laid for four-laning of 116.5km Vikravandi-Sethiathope-Cholapuram-Thanjavur section of NH-36 in Viluppuram, Cuddalore, Ariyalur and Thanjavur districts, six-laning of 36-km-long Karaipettai-Walajapet section of NH-48 in Kancheepuram and Vellore districts and strengthening of existing carriageway of Gudiyatham bypass and Vellore bypass on NH-75 in Vellore district. The Prime Minister dedicated to the nation the electrified Erode-Karur-Trichy and Salem-Karur-Dindigul sections of the railways. Electrification of the sections cost Rs 321 crore. According to ministry of petroleum and natural gas, LNG from Ennore terminal will be transported to customers en route by pipeline right up to Tuticorin in South Tamil Nadu via Puducherry and Trichy. A pipeline has been laid to Bengaluru via Hosur to reach LNG to more industrial customers. The imported LNG will benefit Manali refinery, fertiliser plants, petrochemical plants and power plants, besides gas-based industries and transport sector. Tamil Nadu Banwarilal Purohit, chief minister Edappadi K Palaniswami, deputy chief minister O Panneerselvam and others were present.