Government mulls long-term gas contracts to run power plants: Piyush Goyal.

Concerned that India's demand of gas is not fully exploited, Power Minister Piyush Goyal recently said the government is looking to sign long-term gas contracts with other countries to run its under-utilised power plants.

'We are hoping to tie up long-term gas contracts... so that we can start powering our gas-based power plants once again many of which are running at a very low level of capacity utilisation,' Goyal said addressing a ministerial session at Petrotech conference.

Elaborating further, he said, 'We do hope to see in the days to come some engagement where we can bring down our cost of gas and start powering our gas-based power plants. This will not only provide us clean fuel but also lead to spinning reserve so that our electricity grid remains stable. This will help us providing 24X7 affordable power to all by 2022.'

Earlier last year, the government had launched gas subsidy scheme under the Power System Development Fund (PSDF) to run stranded gas-based power plants is the country.

Three phases of auction of e-bid Re-gasified Liquefied Natural Gas (RLNG) have been completed so far and the fourth Phase is presently under operation from October 1, 2016 to March 31, 2017.

ET