India will develop underground natural gas
storage facilities as an insurance against disruption and supply shortfall.
Oil & Natural Gas Corporation and Gail
(India) have jointly planned to create an underground natural gas storage
facility of capacity up to 1 billion standard cubic metres, it is learnt.
This facility, which would cushion any disruption
in supply of natural gas, would be implemented through a special purpose
vehicle, jointly promoted by the two companies.
French consultants Gaz de France will assist in
the project. GDF has vast experience in the field of developing and operating
underground gas storage in different types of rock formations as well as
depleted gas fields. It owns and operates many such storage facilities in France
and other countries.
Gail has already floated a tender for a
consultant to advise on the development of an underground natural gas storage
facility either in porous media such as depleted oil or gas fields or in
salt-leached caverns. The former involves study of reservoir characteristics,
geometry and native fluid features. Oil Industry Development Board (OIDB)
has pledged an initial Rs.5 lakh for the project study.
The GAIL tender states that the consultant will
advise on the engineering aspects of underground storage technology and branch
connections to transmission pipelines.
The project will be developed in two phases.
Phase-I includes preliminary identification of geological targets and sites
suitable for underground storage. If the Phase-I findings tell that underground
storage is unviable in India, the project will be dropped. If not, then Phase-II
will begin with a detailed feasibility report from the consultant.