Govt diverts natural gas from LPG to city retailers

The government has slashed allocation of natural gas used for LPG production, and diverted the low-priced fuel to city gas retailers like Indraprastha Gas Ltd and Adani-Total Gas Ltd to meet a part of their requirement for CNG/piped cooking gas supplies, according to an official order.

- Press Trust of India

NEW DELHI:

The government had in October and November last year cut supplies of low-priced natural gas coming from old fields such as Mumbai High and Bassein fields in the Bay of Bengal, to city gas retailers by as much as 40% in view of limited output.

This led to city gas retailers hiking CNG prices by ₹2-3 per kg and threatening more increases as they replaced lost volumes with higher-priced input fuel.

The price hike made CNG less attractive when compared to alternate fuels like diesel. To resolve this, the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas in a December 31 order rejigged some allocations of gas produced from below ground and undersea.