Feedstock pact leg-up for IPCL

NEW DELHI: THE disinvestment process in the Indian Petrochemical Corporation is set go ahead full throttle with IPCL, GAIL and ONGC having reached an agreement on pricing of feedstock to the petrochemical major. GAIL will supply natural gas to IPCL’s Gandhar plant at government determined prices while ONGC will get the international price for one of the fractions of gas supplied by it to the Nagothane plant. Addressing the media after an hour-long meeting between senior functionaries of the ministries of petroleum, chemicals and disinvestment, petroleum minister Ram Naik said ONGC will supply ethane at a price at which natural gas is available — subject to availability — till April 2006. Thereafter, the gas would be supplied at market determined prices. As for propane, the gas would be linked to international price. The new rates would be effective from April 1, 2002, though the revision in price formula was due on April 1, 2001. At present, IPCL sources all its ethane requirement from ONGC while one-third of its requirements for propane or one lakh tonne is met from imports. With the new formula coming into play, the IPCL will pay ONGC the same rate it pays for propane in the international market. Natural gas is priced at Rs 2,850 per thousand cubic metres. The composite price for ethane, propane and natural gas as determined by a formula devised by Bureau of Industrial Costs and Prices is Rs 5,710 per thousand cubic metres. The finer details of the prices of would be worked out by the PSUs in the next few days, the minister said. “There is no separate price for propane and ethane at the moment, we have only a composite price,� disinvestment minister Arun Shourie said.