According to the Indian Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, the government is not considering a plan to split state-owned gas utility GAIL and the company is focusing on building pipelines to link gas sources to consumers, in order to speed up gas use. GAIL is India’s largest natural gas marketing and trading group, with a 60 percent stake in the country’s 26,286-kilometer gas pipeline network, essentially giving it a monopoly on the market.
Pradhan said “There is no such consideration at present.” He stated that natural gas’s share of India’s primary energy basket would be increased to 15% by 2030, up from the current 6.3 percent. “The government is encouraging the expansion of natural gas infrastructure, such as pipelines, LNG import terminals, and city gas distribution networks, in order to achieve this”, he said.
Last month, PTI announced that the proposal to break GAIL had been scrapped in order to benefit from the combined balance sheet’s strength in raising funds for the projects. GAIL’s core business of selling natural gas and petrochemical output will be transferred to a subsidiary, while the pipeline business would be transferred to a subsidiary.
