The company's chairman and managing director C. R. Prasad told newspersons on Monday that GAIL had a two-pronged strategy for making inroads into power generation, by using it gas infrastructure and in association with independent power producers (IPPs). Power generation, based on the gas turbine technology, is in synergy with GAIL's business of transporting and producing gas.

The Rs 5736 crore-turnover gas transmission company, also plans to team up with some independent power producers (IPPs), like STI, which is setting up a 400 MW power plant in Guna district of Madhya Pradesh. The Gas Authority of India plans to pick up a 26 per cent equity in the power plant.

It has also teamed up with the Bombay Surburban Electric Services (BSES) to set up a close to500 MW power plant in the national capital territory of Delhi. The public sector enterprise plans to hold a nominal 26 per cent stake in the joint venture, giving operating rights to the power plant to BSES.

The two companies will subsequently invest in similar projects in other parts of the country as well. Navratna GAIL has set itself a vision of being ``the dominant natural gas company with significant global presence, integrated in energy and petrochemicals.''

Some of GAIL's ``navratna'' dreams will be realised within the Ninth Plan period. The company has projects worth Rs 7000 crore in the pipeline, of which Rs 5000 crore will be funded from GAIL's growing internal resources.

Last year GAIL's sales turnover jumped 26 per cent and its profit after tax went up by 40 per cent to Rs 1020.31 crore from Rs 619.55 crore in 1996-97. The blue chip paid a 20 per cent dividend last year, compared to 15 per cent the year before.

The Gas Authority of India director, finance, J. K. Jain said, on an averagethe debt to equity ratio of GAIL projects would be 2:1. Among the projects approved, is a 1230 Km long liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) pipeline from Kandla in Gujarat to Loni, near Delhi.

The project, likely to be commissioned by April 2001, will be partly funded by a $ 150 million loan from the Asian Development Bank. The LPG pipeline will involve an investment of Rs 1230 crore.

The Gas Authority of India has also formed a consortium with Brown and Root, Shell and Cairn Energy, for importing gas from Bangladesh. The GAIL part of the MOU is to bring in 20 million cubic metres of LNG per day through a pipeline and market the gas.

In keeping with its navratna vision, GAIL plans to beef up its pipeline infrastructure. The company has recently increased the capacity of the Hazira-Bijaipur-Jagdishpur (HBJ) pipeline to 33.4 MMSCMD (million standard cubic metres per day) from 18.2 MMSCMD.

It plans to double the HBJ pipeline throughput to 60 MMSCMD in the coming four years, through a ``low cost option'' ofconstructing another parallel line along the Hazira-Bijaipur stretch. The pipeline should coincide with Petronet LNG's first terminal at Dahej and so, be able to take a slice of the business of transporting liquefied natural gas (LNG). Incidentally, GAIL is among the promoters of Petronet LNG.

The expansion of the pipeline network should cost roughly Rs 5000 crore and help GAIL access new markets in the north and northwest of the country. The already expanded HBJ pipeline capacity is expected to boost the GAIL turnover at a time when marketing margins are declining because of low oil and gas prices.

The Gas Authority of India expects a 40 per cent jump in turnover to Rs 7000 crore at the end of the fiscal. During the first quarter, GAIL's gas sales were 5.1 billion cubic metres (BCM), compared to 20 BCM for the whole of last year.

The Rs 2500 crore GAIL petrochemicals complex at Pata is mechanically complete and the gas cracker unit is being commissioned. The cracker capacity of the petrochemicalcomplex will be increased to four lakh tonne from three lakh tonne.

The company is also considerably beefing up its LPG producing capacity and setting up a gas processing complex at Gandhar. In the coming four years GAIL's LPG producing capacity will go up by 6.89 lakh tonne because of the commissioning of new plants at USA, Lakwa and Auraiya.