About 30,000 tonnes of LPG is in the pipeline. With this, commissioning activities for the world's longest exclusive LPG pipeline has been completed for about 40 per cent of the pipeline length, a company statement said here. GAIL started the construction work on the pipeline in October 1999 and commenced commissioning of the pipeline on August 15, 2000, by charging LPG from the Reliance Refinery at its first dispatch terminal at Jamnagar. The company has scheduled the commissioning activities in a phased manner across sections of the pipeline with the entire pipeline expected to be commissioned by the end of 2000-01. With the LPG reaching Abu Road, three sections of the pipeline have been commissioned with five more remaining.

By the end of November, LPG is expected to reach Ajmer where the first off-take from the pipeline will be initiated by Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL).

About 350 tonnes of LPG per day would be received by BPCL at Ajmer which is equivalent to about 25,000 domestic cylinders per day. A total of 900 tonnes per day of LPG would be evacuated at Ajmer once the other two companies - Indian Oil Corporation and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd - also start taking the LPG from the pipeline, the release said.

The total pipeline system comprises, apart from the line itself, booster stations at Jamnagar, Samakhyali, Abu Road and Ajmer. The commissioning of these would complete the first phase and the pipeline would achieve the targeted capacity of 1.7 million tonnes.

In the second phase, another booster station would be commissioned at Jaipur, which would increase the capacity to 2.5 million tonnes. After commissioning of the second phase, the LPG being transported through the pipeline would be equivalent to five lakh domestic cylinders per day. The pipeline passes through five states, originating in Gujarat and moving through Rajasthan, Haryana, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh. The LPG is currently picked up from the Reliance Refinery at Jamnagar and subsequently will be taken from the Essar Refinery also and the import terminal of IOC at Kandla.

En route, the LPG will be evacuated at Ajmer and Jaipur in Rajasthan, Piyala in Haryana, Madhanpur Khadar in Delhi and Loni in UP. GAIL shall be transporting LPG for IOC, BOCL and HPCL who have their bottling plants and their terminals at these locations. GAIL proposes to construct two more LPG pipelines in southern India - one from Vizag to Secunderabad in Andhra Pradesh and the other from Mangalore to Coimbatore in the states of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, the release added.