India needs more pipelines, minister says

NEW DELHI, Aug. 6 (UPI) -- The Indian Petroleum Ministry needs to push for measures to expand the national gas pipeline network to help the agricultural sector, officials said.

M.K. Alagiri, the Indian minister of chemicals and fertilizers, called on Petroleum Minister Murli Deora to find ways to offer more gas to help fertilizer plants utilize cheaper feedstock, the Times of India reports.

Alagiri praised the Petroleum Ministry for his "active support" of the fertilizer industry through his allocation of some 530 million cubic feet of gas per day from the Andhra offshore field.

The fertilizer industry uses gas for a fuel source and to develop feedstock.

The Petroleum Ministry, meanwhile, is asked to lay new pipelines to connect to energy plants that use naphtha and fuel oil in an effort to switch them over to natural gas, a cheaper and cleaner resource.

"It is found that modernization of fertilizer industry is impeded by lack of gas pipeline connectivity to existing naphtha and (industrial fuels) based urea units in the country," complained Alagiri in his letter. "There has hardly been any progress towards providing pipeline connectivity."

Alagiri said the switch to natural gas would require about 388 million cubic feet of gas per day.