Petronet India may shelve its Rs.3629 crore 1700 km Central India Pipeline Project, as the promoters are no longer keen on pursuing the project. The promoters – Reliance Industries, Bharat Petroleum Corporation and Essar Oil – had refused to sign the take-or-pay agreement. The final decision in this regard would be taken up at next board meeting of Petronet India.

Petronet in collaboration with Reliance Industries, Indian Oil, Essar Oil, Bharat Petroleum Corporation, planned to lay pipeline network extending from Jamnagar to Koyali in Gujarat. This was to be further extended to Ratlam where it would be bifurcated into two networks. The northern trunk pipeline would go to Kota and terminate at Gwalior and the southern branch would go to Nagpur via Itarsi.

The cost of the project was revised downwards from Rs.5,148 crore to Rs.3,629 crore because the earlier proposed spur lines planned to Indore, Bhopal and Chittorgarh were dropped with the route being redirected from Jamnagar to Ratlam via Koyali and Rajkot with a northern branch to Gwalior and a southern branch to Nagpur. The southern branch was to be further extended to Hyderabad depending upon its viability. The company proposed to lay pipelines between Indore and Bhopal from the Ratlam – Itarsi section.