REWRITE LNG PRICING POLICY, SAY GAS USERS, STAKEHOLDERS

A meeting of LNG users, potential users and other stakeholders here on Wednesday called for rewriting the government policy regulating allocation and distribution of domestically produced natural gas among States.

“A national level pooling and allocation policy is required for equitable distribution of available gas among different states,” said a statement issued by the organisers of the meeting Save FACT Action Committee, a combine of trade unions at Fertilizers and Chemicals Travancore.

The meeting was convened over rising price of natural gas landed in Kochi at the recently commissioned terminal operated by Petronet LNG Limited.

Besides FACT, industrial units like Travancore Cochin Chemicals, BSES, Kerala State Road Transport Corporation and National Thermal Power Corporation were represented at the meeting, a first of its kind convened to talk about issues related to the pricing of natural gas available in Kochi through the LNG terminal here.

The meeting also pointed out that GAIL, entrusted with the task of laying pipelines for the project, had failed to get the work done. Only about 50 km of the pipeline within the Kochi area, linking the LNG terminal with industrial units in and around city, have been completed. This was one of the reasons for the failure of the LNG terminal to use its full capacity.

Another reason was the failure of the potential user entities to prepare themselves for switching to natural gas, the meeting observed.