The Indian government-owned natural gas transmission company said that the pipeline construction will enable supply of gas to Matix Fertilizers in Durgapur.
As part of the project, also known as Jagdishpur-Haldia & Bokaro-Dhamra Natural Gas Pipeline (JHBDPL), a 55km long pipeline will be laid out covering eight districts in West Bengal.
GAIL revealed the cost of this segment of the JHBDPL pipeline to be INR2700crore ($423.9m).
The company expects to shortly commence further work for extending the pipeline project up to Haldia and City Gas Distribution in Kolkata in West Bengal.
GAIL claimed that the Urja Ganga pipeline project, which was inaugurated by the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in July 2015, is progressing on a fast track basis.
The INR129.4bn ($2.03bn) pipeline project will pass through the states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Odisha, with plans to extend it further to cover the North Eastern states.
Aimed at expanding the gas networks in cities in eastern India, the Urja Ganga pipeline project is also expected to drive industrial development with the supply of clean natural gas to fertilizer plants, power plants, refineries, steel plants and other industrial facilities.
The pipeline project is being carried out in phases with the first phase involving construction of a 755km long pipeline network from Phulpur in Uttar Pradesh to Dobhi in Bihar, with spurlines to be laid in Varanasi, Gorakhpur, Patna and Barauni. GAIL plans to complete phase I of the project by the year end.
The second phase of the project will see the pipeline network extended beyond Dobhi to Durgapur, Haldia and Bokaro to Ranchi and Angul–Dhamra. This 1,900km pipeline network is slated to be completed by December 2020.
