Transnational Gas Pipeline Project
Current Natural Gas Project Development- South Asia Gas Enterprise Pvt. Ltd. (SAGE)
Taking advantage of India’s economic growth and realizing the need to assist in energy security, the Siddho Mal Group is now taking the initiative to independently develop a Multi-Billion dollar new Energy Corridor, through its company, South Asia Gas Enterprise Pvt. Ltd. (SAGE), in technical collaboration with a UK based Technology company.
In this project, SAGE will build a series of undersea natural gas pipelines from the Gulf Region to India through a Global Consortium of companies during the next 10 -15 years.
Project Presentations have been made in India, Middle-East, Europe & USA and Long Term Gas supply discussions are on with a number of Gulf, Middle East & CIS countries at highest levels.
SAGE builds on the already extensive study done in 1990’s for the Oman to India deep-water pipeline route. This deep-water route is the shortest distance between the gas reserves in the Middle East and the coast of Gujarat, India’s gas hub.
SAGE will play an important role in reducing the demand-supply gap of natural gas for India during this decade and onwards. Financial closure is expected by 2012.
Peritus International Ltd. is the Project Management and Design Consultant for the Gas Pipeline Project. Recent Technical studies have shown that the project is now feasible, due to advance in Deep-Sea Pipe laying & Pipe Repair Technology.
SAGE has MoU/Cooperation arrangements with some of the world’s most reputed Global & Indian Companies like Hereema, Intec Sea, Saipem, Corus, Welspun and International Oil Companies like NIGEC, Oman Oil and Gas Ministry, GAIL, Indian Oil Corporation, Engineers India Limited etc.
SAGE is also closely in touch with the Indian Government & Ministries and well as Government Companies dealing in Oil & Gas. The project also enjoys tremendous Goodwill in Gulf and Middle-East Regions.
For more information, please visit
www.sage-india.com
Planning a Route and Installation for the Middle East-to-India Deepwater Pipeline
After Years of Feasibility Studies and Technological Advances, Pipelines at Depths up to 3,500 Meters Are Nearly in Reach
By Ian Nash
Business Acquisition and Operations Director for Europe, Africa and the Middle East
Peritus International Ltd.
Woking, England
and
Peter M. Roberts
Technical Director
South Asia Gas Enterprise Pvt. Ltd.
New Delhi, India
Pipeline route from the Middle East compression station (MECS) to the Gujarat pipeline receiving terminal (GPRT) in India via an offshore gas compression system (OGCS) on the Qalhat Seamount.
South Asia Gas Enterprise Pvt. Ltd. (SAGE), a joint venture led by the Siddho Mal Group (New Delhi, India), has plans to build the Middle East-to-India Deepwater Pipeline (MEIDP), a deepwater, transnational, natural gas pipeline system that will cross the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea. The MEIDP is anticipated to be the first of many in a corridor of pipelines that will form the final leg of a major energy supply route linking the two regions.
Imported gas will play a major role in bridging the demand-supply gap in the Indian market. Countries that have a traditional trading relationship with India, including Oman, Qatar, Iran and Turkmenistan, have more than 2,000 trillion cubic feet of natural gas reserves. India already imports about 1.1 billion cubic feet of gas per day on liquified natural gas tankers to meet its current shortfall. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, this shortfall is expected to rise dramatically by 2020 and continue rising through 2030, when it will peak at 3.56 billion cubic feet per day.
This need for imported gas is recognized by earlier proposals to build gas pipelines on overland routes. The Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline, despite years of discussion, has not been implemented. The Turkmenistan-to-India pipeline proposal continues to move forward slowly; an intergovernmental agreement on the pipeline was finally signed in December 2010 after 15 years of discussion. Security during construction and subsequent operation, however, will probably continue to cast a shadow across these overland routes. By comparison, supplying gas from the Middle East to India via a deepwater route is far less exposed to risk of interruption.
The possibility of having an alternative supply of natural gas for the Indian market via a secure deepwater route will add competition and remove the potential risks of a single overland supply route. The deepwater route also provides the easiest option for expansion into a corridor of supply pipelines in the future.
The deepwater route across the Arabian Sea is the shortest secure distance between Middle Eastern reserves and the rapidly developing industrial heartland in the Indian state of Gujarat. This route is too short for liquified natural gas tankers to be an economic transportation option.
Peritus International is performing and supervising conceptual studies to take the project into front-end engineering and design in early 2012. The project is scheduled to achieve first gas in the fourth quarter of 2017.
The direct Middle East-to-India Pipeline route profile, which does not include an offshore gas compression station.
Proposed Pipeline Parameters and Routes
SAGE’s MEIDP project builds on an early 1990s study of the deepwater Oman-to-India pipeline. The feasibility of constructing the pipeline improved after SAGE’s recent development work and a decade of industry advancements in deepwater design, manufacturing and pipelay. The MEIDP is to be developed by a consortium of design and construction contractors.
The MEIDP has an inner diameter of 610 millimeters, a size that will allow the delivery of up to 1.1 billion standard cubic feet per day of sales-quality natural gas to India. The base case originates at the Middle East compression station near Ra’s Al Jifan, Oman, and terminates at the Gujarat Pipeline Receiving Terminal (GPRT) near Porbandar, India. Crossing the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea, the pipeline will reach water depths of about 3,450 meters and will be approximately 1,300 kilometers in length.
The route crosses the gently sloping Oman Shelf and then descends across the relatively steep and fractured Oman Slope to the Oman Abyssal Plain. The Oman Slope is characterized by a stepping topography caused by faulting as well as incisions from deep erosive submarine canyons and channels with steep walls. The Oman Abyssal Plain is generally flat, smooth and featureless.
About 300 kilometers along the route is the Qalhat Seamount. This dramatic feature rises almost 3,000 meters from the seafloor to come within 300 to 400 meters of the surface, where SAGE is considering whether to build an offshore gas compression station (OGCS). The pipeline transportation distance between the Middle East and India is such that intermediate gas compression between the source and the arrival point may be required or may provide a useful means of reducing pipe sizes and hence costs, as well as improving installability.
The Qalhat Seamount is located at the intersection of Murray Ridge and the Owen fracture zone, which delineates the boundary between two tectonic plates that have relative horizontal movement and are prone to earthquakes, fault movements and landslides.
After crossing the Oman Abyssal Plain, the natural gas pipeline route would ascend to the top of the Qalhat Seamount from the north if the option to build an OGCS is selected. The route descends the Qalhat Seamount to the seafloor following broadly the same route as the ascent.
If an OGCS will not be built on the Qalhat Seamount, the route will instead turn and pass through a corridor between the Qalhat Seamount and a smaller seamount to the northeast. From there, it will cross the tectonic plate boundary to enter the Arabian Abyssal Plain. The route through the Arabian Abyssal Plain is generally flat, smooth and featureless except where it encounters the meandering channels and levees of the Indus Fan. Finally, the route will climb the relatively steep Indian continental slope and cross the Indian shelf to the receiving terminal.
Advances in Deepwater Technologies
The Oman-to-India pipeline was first considered in the mid-90s. At the same time, this project faced a number of technical challenges, such as the lack of vessels with enough tension capability to lay pipes in 3,500 meters’ depth and a qualified deepwater pipeline repair system, in addition to significant hydrotesting and drying concerns. Pipe mill upgrades would be required to manufacture the line pipe of the required size and quality. The project also faced incomplete understanding of seismic activities and inadequate mitigation methods for mudflows, fault lines and slope failures. The project’s backers concluded these challenges were not insurmountable, but the project never came out planning.
The offshore oil and gas industry has advanced significantly since 1995. Numerous large-diameter gas transmission pipelines, such as the Russia-to-Turkey Blue Stream pipeline across the Black Sea and the Algeria-to-Spain Medgaz pipeline crossing the Mediterranean Sea, have been installed in depths up to 2,200 meters. Other projects such as the proposed GALSI pipeline, running from Algeria to northern Italy, are planned in depths of about 2,800 meters.
A Qatar-to-India Pipeline?
by:
energytribunePosted date:
September 01, 2009 In:
Middle East
While the much talked about India-Pakistan-Iran (IPI) gas pipeline remains in limbo, there has been progress in a proposed deep-sea gas pipeline from Qatar, via Oman, to India.
In August, state owned utility Gas Authority of India Limited (GAIL), which is keen on sourcing new gas supplies, signed an agreement with the New Delhi-based South Asia Gas Enterprise Pvt. Ltd (SAGE), aimed at building a 2,000-kilometer deep-sea gas pipeline from Qatar to Oman and then on to the Indian states of Gujarat or Maharashtra. No cost estimates have been published, but the final price tag for such a project would almost certainly exceed $10 billion.
GAIL is India ”s flagship natural gas company, integrating all aspects of the value chain – exploration and production, processing, transmission, distribution and marketing. It expects the Mideast pipeline will be built given the never-ending delays on the IPI line and the ongoing increases in India’s gas consumption. And new gas supplies from the Krishna-Godavari (KG) fields on India ‘s east coast won’t be enough to slake demand.
India’s natural gas consumption presently is 180 million standard cubic meters per day (6.4 Bcf per day) while the domestic production is 80 million standard cubic meters (2.8 Bcf per day.) The KG basin, owned by private-sector giant Reliance Industries, will fill a bit of this demand supply gap, but will be insufficient to meet requirements of the emerging Indian economy expected to reach 300 million cubic meters per day (10.6 Bcf per day) by 2012.
Currently, Qatar supplies the bulk of rising natural gas imports into India in the form of liquefied natural gas (LNG) and those imports are slated to double this year. In 2008 India imported between 6.5 and 7 million metric tons (mt) of LNG, about 0.9 to 1 Bcf per day.
India’s Petronet buys 5 mt a year of LNG from Qatar ‘s Rasgas and another 1.5 mt from BP and others for its 10 mt Dahej terminal. Imports from Rasgas are due to rise to 7.5 mt next year.
SAGE, an Indian private sector initiative, is a joint venture between the Siddhomal group, an Indian firm, and UK-based Deep Water Technology Co. The venture is independent of state-to-state negotiations for implementing trans-national pipelines which have generated headlines in recently. The consortium has claimed financial feasibility in connecting India to the Gulf and is looking to create a $3-billion natural gas transportation infrastructure, with another $3 billion needed if Iran is brought into the loop.
If all goes well, the SAGE energy corridor is expected to be completed by about 2015. The pipelines would reach a depth of 3,500 meters and the terrain has been extensively surveyed over the last two decades.
In the first phase, 31 million cubic meters per day (1.1 Bcf per day) could be transported to the Indian west coast from Qatar. Three pipelines are expected to be laid. The deepwater pipelines will traverse the Arabian Sea south of territorial waters and economic exclusion zones of all third party nations.
The financial and technical issues are challenging. No pipelines have ever traversed such deep waters. But a senior official from GAIL, told Energy Tribune “We expect that the pipeline will draw good investment response from players in India and West Asia . GAIL has procured intensive studies conducted by leading oil and gas industry deepwater pipeline specialists, Heerema Marine Contractors and INTECSEA, who have said that the Mideast pipeline project is technically feasible. This was an important consideration in signing the deal with SAGE.”
India’s interest in the Mideast pipeline stems from failed efforts in sourcing gas from Iran, Myanmar and Bangladesh. And suspicions between India and China have meant that the prospects of a South Asian oil and gas grid remain slim.
The pan-Asian grid was to connect hydrocarbon extracted in West Asia and Southeast Asia to the main markets in Turkey, India , China , Korea and Japan .
Meanwhile, India’s efforts to build a 1,400-kilometer Indo-Myanmar gas pipeline have failed, even as China has become the sole buyer of Myanmar gas from its Shwe fields, where ironically, India’s largest oil and gas companies, ONGC and GAIL, own large stakes. Transit and security issues raised by Bangladesh and Beijing ‘s superior financial, strategic and military muscle in the region have meant that India lost out.
The proposed $7.5 billion IPI pipeline remains stuck for many reasons including America ‘s misgivings about any country doing business with Iran. The pipeline, if constructed, has the potential to deliver 5.3 Bcf per day of gas from southern Iran to Pakistan and India. Though the Iran-Pakistan portion of the pipeline is making some progress, there are reports that Washington is pressuring Islamabad to refrain from the pipeline. Washington has threatened sanctions under the Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act that has the backing of the US Congress.
With a reserve of nearly 23 Tcf of natural gas, Bangladesh offers an attractive option for India that remains unexplored. Since the gas reserves exist in the eastern parts which face political turmoil, the India-Bangladesh gas corridor has not materialized.
Further, Dhaka has linked gas supply with other bilateral issues such as reducing its trade deficit that has stymied any progress. This has also affected the transit pipeline from Myanmar via Bangladesh .
India, however, has some hopes from the US-backed $ 3.5 billion Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan (TAP) pipeline. India is studying the TAP project, but feasibility reports have been mixed.
Obviously, India needs more gas. And that hunger for methane has the country looking in every direction, and at every possible partner.
- See more at:
A Qatar-to-India Pipeline? - Energy TribuneEnergy Tribune
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