The capacity of the proposed facility, part of Indian Oil's Rs 56,000-cr investment plan during the 12th Plan, will be five mt a year.
The government should bring natural gas under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime to realise Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision for a gas-based economy and raising the share of the environment-friendly fuel in India's energy basket, an industry body that represents the likes of Reliance Industries as well as state-owned firms, has said. Natural gas is currently outside the ambit of GST, and existing legacy taxes -- central excise duty, state VAT, central sales tax -- continue to be applicable on the fuel. In its pre-Budget memorandum to the finance ministry, Federation of Indian Petroleum Industry (FIPI), which boasts of members from across the oil and gas spectrum, also demanded rationalisation of GST on transportation of natural gas through pipeline as well as on re-gasification of imported LNG to help bring down cost of the environment friendly fuel.
The total requirement of regassified-LNG for operation of Block number 2 and 3 at base load is 5.7 million standard cubic meters per day. However from December 14, suppliers of RLNG -- GAIL, Indian Oil, Bharat Petroleum -- are supplying only 4.506 mmscmd.
The project, with total generation capacity of 1,967 Mw, has been shut since Thursday, owing to shortage of gas.
To increase gas availability for power plants, the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas has taken various steps.
Overnight, the Wall Street closed on a flatter note.
Duty cut on raw material imports are not likely.