Two sections of the Ennore-Tiruvallur-Bengaluru-Puducherry-Nagapattinam-Madurai-Thoothukudi natural gas pipeline, from Tiruvallur to Bengaluru (270 km) and Ennore to Chengalpattu (115 km), are nearing completion. The line to Bengaluru is a loop line and will supply gas from the Ennore liquid natural gas (LNG) terminal to that city.
Sources in Indian Oil Corporation’s pipeline division said the pipelines on most stretches ran as part of the existing lines carrying other petroleum products. “We did not require much land since we used the land available in our right of way,” explained a source.
“Once the Chengalpattu stretch is commissioned, the supply of R-LNG (regassified–liquid natural gas), as it is correctly known, will commence to industrial consumers at Oragadam and Sriperumbudur. Supply of natural gas would bring down the reliance of units on LPG, which is costlier. Already companies involved in distribution of natural gas to households and industries are laying pipelines to these places,” another source explained.
Work on the stretches of pipelines to Puducherry, Nagapattinam and Madurai is to be completed by the end of this financial year. Laying of the pipeline began in 2019 at a total cost of ₹6,000 crore, and the stretches from Ramanathapuram to Thoothukudi and Ennore to Manali have been commissioned.
Natural gas is brought to the Ennore terminal, the first on the country’s east coast, by ship in a liquid form at a temperature of minus 160 degrees Celsius. Then it is regassified and supplied to industries and other entities that sell gas for use in vehicles and also supply to homes as piped natural gas. Smaller vehicles use compressed natural gas and bigger vehicles like trucks can use it in the liquid form.
