Gas shortage:Production on halt in 800 industrial units in south Gujarat

Surat, 22 January 2014

Gujarat Gas has stopped gas supply to more 375 industrial units in south Gujarat today. The company had already stopped supply to 175 units yesterday. The reasons explained were (1) short supply of gas from GAIL, and (2) costlier import due to cold situation abroad. Phase wise termination of gas supply is likely to affect over 800 industrial units in south and central Gujarat(between Bharuch and Vapi). The company is likely to resume gas supply in first week of February.

According to Vipul Gajera of Ankleshwar Udyog Mandal, the decision will completely halt production. He said, the industry will not be able to fulfill the orders taken from the customers due to long halt in production.

According to Subhash Patil, Secretary, Ankleshwar Udyog Mandal, the gas company has told that it may not resume gas supply before 1st February. Even after 1st Feb, the industrial units will take five-six more days to resume their operation. This will in-total cause a gap of around 15 days, which may result into a massive loss of couple of thousand crores rupees.

About 130 dying/processing/weaving units in Surat and south Gujarat are closed due to lack of gas supply. These units had abandoned coal fuel due to environmental reasons.

Gujarat Gas company’s spokesperson said there was shortage of LNG supply from international market and therefore price of gas was up. Europe, Japan etc regions have purchased majority of cargo at upper price level, therefore poor countries are facing difficulty. Industries were demanding to cut gas supply to homes and vehicles, but company didn’t want to make life difficult for home/vehicle fuel consumers. Therefore supply to industries has been stopped. Gujarat Gas is in talk with international distributors of LPG. If gas supply resumes before 31st January, industries will be supplied it.

Gujarat Gas gets 25-30% PMT gas, while 70% LNG gas is purchased from GAIL and international market.