GAIL plans to invest Rs 30,000 crore in the next three years as it expands its petrochemical capacity and scouts for LNG supplies globally, chairman Sandeep Kumar Gupta said Wednesday.

The nation’s top gas marketing and transportation firm is looking at liquefied natural gas (LNG) as a transport fuel, joining Essar-promoted GreenLine, which operates the nation’s largest LNG-powered fleet of heavy commercial vehicles.

Speaking at the company’s annual shareholders’ meeting, Gupta said the PSU had a Rs 10,000 crore capex in the 2022-23 fiscal (April 2022 to March 2023).

“The company is growing steadily and creating infrastructure facilities across the nation. We are targeting to incur a capex of Rs 30,000 crore in the next three years, mainly on pipelines, ongoing petrochemical projects, CGD projects, operational capex, equity contribution in group companies,” he said.

With 15,600 kilometres of pipelines under operation and about 4,200 km of pipelines under construction, GAIL will complete around 20,000 km of the national gas grid in the next calendar year, he said.

GAIL has also won the licence to lay, build and operate the 160 km Gurdaspur-Jammu natural gas pipeline.

With this, GAIL shall be enabling access to natural gas to the northern as well as the north-eastern parts of the country, through the Barauni-Guwahati pipeline (BGPL) (729 km) section as an integral part of the Jagdishpur-Haldia and Bokaro-Dhamra Pipeline (JHBDPL).

Gupta said with growing petrochemical demand, India is projected to contribute more than 10 per cent of the incremental global growth in petrochemicals over the next decade.

GAIL recently acquired private-sector chemical company JBF Petrochemicals Ltd, adding 1.25 million tonnes of petchem capacity.

“This acquisition offers GAIL an opportunity to add a new chemical product, purified terephthalic acid (PTA) to GAIL’s existing product portfolio. Your company is also implementing 500,000 tonnes per annum of the country’s first propane dehydrogenation PP plant at Usar and another 60,000 tonnes of polypropylene at Pata,” he said.

GAIL is setting up its first specialty chemical plant of 50,000 tonnes of isopropyl alcohol (IPA) at Usar in Maharashtra. “With these additions, your company’s portfolio of petrochemicals/ chemicals would become 3 million tonnes per annum,” he said.

GAIL is also “exploring opportunities of ethane sourcing for its existing petrochemical plant while prospects of setting up of ethane cracker are also being studied,” he said. GAIL, he said, is exploring long-term LNG sourcing opportunities with major global LNG players.