Poor Road Infrastructure Delays ONGC's Konaban GGS Project

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Delhi, India)-- The ongoing capacity augmentation at Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited (ONGC) Limited's (BSE: 500312) (New Delhi, India) Konaban Group Gathering Station (GSS) in Tripura is facing a major setback due to the poor road-connectivity to the project site. Poor road-infrastructure in the landlocked north-east Indian state of Tripura is severely hampering transport of equipment and construction materials, thereby causing delay in execution of the project.

Mired by this impediment, the capacity augmentation project which was originally slated for commissioning in August 2012 may now even miss its latest commissioning schedule of December 2012. According to ONGC sources, Kazstroy Service Infrastructure India Private Limited (Gurgaon, Haryana), the Turnkey Contractor for the $56-million project, could make a progress of only 56% in the project against a planned target of 73%. "The contractor is facing difficulties in meeting the deadline and complete the construction by August 2012 (the deadline for the completion of the project) and it may take another of 4-5 months for the completion of the project" said a source privy to the development.

The project is aimed at upgrading the gas processing plant at the Konaban GGS, located at Konaban village in the West Tripura District of Tripura, from its current level of about 500,000 standard cubic meters per day to 1.5 million standard cubic meters per day to supply fuel to ONGC Tripura Power Company Limited's (OTPC) (New Delhi, India) upcoming gas-based power plant and to cater to the other consumers, including North Eastern Electric Power Corporation Limited (Shillong, Meghalaya) (NEEPCO) and Allied Resins & Chemicals Limited (BSE:524538) (Kolkata, West Bengal). Tripura asset currently has a production capacity of 1.7 million standard cubic meters per day (MMSCMD) and it would require production of at least 2.8 MMSCMD to fuel the 726.6-megawatt (MW) power plant, which is coming up in the asset area.

ONGC is India's leading oil and gas exploration company. ONGC has produced around 600 million metric tons of crude oil and supplied more than 200 billion cubic meters of gas since its inception. The company is involved in exploring for and exploiting hydrocarbons in 26 sedimentary basins of India and owns and operates over 11,000 kilometers of pipelines in the country.

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