Thread by @muralipiyer

This is a great news.
(Disc: I own gspl. I was planning to add petronet this month.)
I am still thinking of ditching IOC. My assumptions haven’t worked out as planned.

financialexpress.com/economy/cng-pn…

That aside, the PNGRB is going slow and steady.
With opening of 100 more districts, we are talking about piped gas network expanding even further.
The report claims that this 11th round will bring 70% of population under the grid.

financialexpress.com/economy/cng-pn…

You have to see things under perspective.
I think 1972 was when city gas was started in Gujarat.
Gujarat Gas, the oldest has only operator was established in 1972.(owned by GSPL).
It’s basically 50 years since we first started.

Essentially we are going to get same kind of gas coverage as electricity coverage in 90s.
And that’s despite a large part of electricity grid already being built in the pre-independence era itself.

The gas grid moved from “pilot” mode to a more widespread scale only in the last decade. (More like a handful before that. But picked up only last decade.)

The speed and scale slowly started picking up.
This despite idiots filing multiple cases, some for land, others well....

This is the gas grid map from 2018-19 annual report of PNGRB.
src: pngrb.gov.in/pdf/annualrepo…
In this, the black is what’s on ground.

The green is what’s already done. The other colors are for what’s already awarded and what’s plan till the last round(10th round).

Note that like the way we used to talk about electricity earlier, we are only counting districts covered and not “villages” or hamlets covered.

Why gas?
Because our hands are tied now.
A) fossil fuels are just getting tougher on the import bill.
B) pollution is only the cover. PNG or LNG or CNG or methane(in future) are cheaper. Piped delivery is cheaper on the long run.
Let’s not forget about high transportation now.

C) piped gas is an excellent way to show off a “working government”. This is the same ploy used in national highways. Vikas, even doing the basics, is still a huge thing for most of the voters.
Voters will support even if they are not directly benefiting from development.

D) That ‘LPG cylinder in every home’ thing is pinching the operational costs more. City gas grid is just more efficient for distribution. And it also brings down the cost of cooking gas. (It’s also a nice way to get out of subsidies)

This gas story has just started.
We are still only covering the most populous and most “pipe-able” parts as of now.
Gujarat, Mumbai, Assam, etc got the gas grids because of availability of gas fields nearby. We are now going for nation gas grid. NG Pipeline has a long way to go.

All I hope is that when we celebrate our centenary, we get an energy grid reaching every hamlet. If gas is not reachable, hopefully we can adjust with gas powered electricity instead.

We have to make our per capita energy consumption jump by 10x.(that’s the gap with OECD now)

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