• PAGE ONE
• INDEX
• HOME

Piping LPG to Hyderabad

Amit Mitra

THE GAS Authority of India Ltd (GAIL) is doing the spadework required to start work by the year end on the proposed 600-km pipeline for transporting liquified petroleum gas (LPG) between Vizag and Hyderabad.

Estimated to cost about Rs. 500 crores, the pipeline will traverse through six districts of Andhra Pradesh -- Visakhapatnam, East Godavari, West Godavari, Krishna, Nalgonda and Ranga Reddy before ending at Cherlapally near Secunderabad. Th e pipeline, which will have a tap-off station at Vijayawada to meet the demand for LPG in that region, is expected to be completed in 36 months from the date of starting.

GAIL embarked on the project with the cardinal objective of meeting the demand for LPG in that part of the country, especially as it has been projected that the southern region would have to continue LPG imports for the `forseeable future'. The demand fo r LPG as a domestic fuel in the region is presently being met through indigenous production from the refineries at Vizag, Kochi, Chennai, Nagapattinam and Mangalore, apart from imports via Vizag and Mangalore ports.

According to GAIL's estimates, the demand for LPG in the southern region was about one million tonnes per annum at the end of the Eighth Plan, which is projected to rise to 2 million tonnes, 2.45 million tonnes and 3 million tonnes by the end of the Nint h, Tenth and Eleventh Plans respectively. But indigenous production, 0.6 million tonnes per annum by the end of the Eighth Plan, is expected to rise to just 0.9 million tonnes and 1.05 million tonnes by the Ninth and Tenth Plan periods respectively.

GAIL's justification for the Vizag-Hyderabad pipeline project is based on the projections of increased imports of LPG made by the Vizag port and the private LPG terminals that are coming up in Vizag. While East India Petroleum Ltd (EIPL) has already set up in Vizag what is perhaps the first private sector terminal on the east coast, Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL) and French oil and gas major TotalFina plan to set up India's first underground LPG storage facility. These developments are expec ted to increase the demand for LPG transportation in Andhra Pradesh.

At present both indigenous and imported LPG from Vizag are mostly transported to the demand centres by road and rail. But, as GAIL sources point out, pipeline transportation has several distinct advantages. An underground pipeline reduces direct contact with people, is a relatively safer method of transportation, an improvement in availability of highway/railway transportation infrastructure and uninterrupted supply of LPG unlike in road transportation which is vulnerable to traffic congestion and non-a vailability of tankers. The prime advantage is, however, the lower unit rate of transportation leading to significant savings in LPG delivery costs.

The GAIL pipeline is designed to meet the projected inputs of 0.15 million tonnes per annum expected to be produced by HPCL's Vizag refinery and 0.908 million tonnes per annum of LPG import. Engineers India Ltd (EIL), which is associated with the constru ction of a longer cross-country LPG pipeline network from Jamnagar to Loni, will design and do the engineering of the Vizag-Hyderabad pipeline.

The GAIL project envisages use of a 12-feet underground pipeline, with a five-km spur line for supply of LPG to HPCL's facility. The pipeline will be laid in HPCL's existing right of way in the Vizag-Vijayawada pipeline corridor. For the Vijayawada-Secun derabad section, additional land 12 metres wide is being acquired along the pipeline route -- this will also run parallel to HPCL's proposed pipeline extension from Vijayawada to Secunderabad. The pipeline will be protected against external corrosio n by a three-layer polyethylene coating and cathodic protection system, and will be monitored by a supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system. It will have a dedicated fibre-optic based telecommunication and voice communicatio n system for efficient operation.

A senior GAIL official pointed out: ``The pipeline is being designed, engineered and constructed in accordance with the provision of the latest edition of ASME/ANSI B 31.4, an American national standard for liquid transportation system for hydrocarbons, LPG, anhydrous ammonia and alcohol.''

According to the official, an elaborate safety system would be put in place in the proposed facility, especially a system that can detect a leak through holes as small as 5 mm or equivalent to material release of 1.2 kg/sec within 10 minutes from the sta rt of leakage.