Anil Ambani plans pipeline to ferry gas to Dadri

Anil Ambani has plans to set up a mega gas-based project at Dadri of UP which will use the KG basin gas to generate power for fast growing areas around Delhi, reports S Ghosh.

Industrialist Anil Ambani on Tuesday announced plans for a natural gas pipeline from Kakinada in Andhra Praadesh to Dadri in Uttar Pradesh at a cost of Rs 14,000 crore. He also said that Reliance Energy would invest Rs 60,000 crore in power generation in the coming five years.

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Anil Ambani’s Reliance Natural Resources Ltd is locked in a court battle for rights to the gas to be produced from the Krishna Godavari-basin by elder brother Mukesh Ambani 's Reliance Industries Ltd. Reliance Industries has said that the gas would be available from the second half of 2008.

Anil Ambani has plans to set up a mega gas-based project at Dadri of Uttar Pradesh which will use the KG basin gas to generate power for fast growing areas around Delhi. The younger Ambani addressed two consecutive annual general meetings of Reliance Energy and Reliance Natural Resources Ltd.(RNRL)

Speaking at the annual general meeting of RNRL, Ambani said that the company had applied to the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas for permission to lay a 1,600 km pipeline to transport gas from Kakinada to Dadri. “This will be the longest pipeline in the country, and would require an investment of over Rs 14,000 crore,” he told shareholders.

Ambani said that apart from serving the Dadri plant , the pipeline would also supply energy to customers in Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh.

RNRL is also planning to invest Rs 12,000 crore in mining and supplying coal to five of the nine Ultra Mega Power Projects planned for the country. “Five Ultra Mega Power Projects will be based on the use of imported coal, yielding opportunities in the import and sourcing of coal by way of long-term supply contracts or equity investments in suitable foreign coal mines abroad,” he said.

In the past one year, the Ministry of Coal has invited applications for the allocation of 15 coal blocks for captive mining by power companies. RNRL has also applied to the ministry for allocation of eight of these blocks.

Reliance Energy has targeted an addition in generation of 15,000 MW over the next five years at an investment outlay of Rs 60,000 crore, Anil Ambani said.

“In transmission, we are already working on two large projects at the cost of Rs 2,750 crore, and will bid for all forthcoming ultra mega transmission projects,” he added.