Adani Gas to start operating all ‘geographical areas’ by FY 21-end.

Adani Group’s city-gas distribution (CGD) arm, Adani Gas Limited (AGL), is aggressively expanding its network coverage, as the company looks to operationalise all the 38 Geographical Areas (GAs) by the end of next fiscal.

“Currently, work is going on for laying down steel pipeline (for the network) in all the GAs. And, we have simultaneously completed the identification of the CNG stations in these GAs. We are working in full-swing and by next fiscal we will start operating in all GAs,” said Suresh P Manglani, Chief Executive Officer of AGL.

Addressing a media-analyst call on Wednesday, Manglani also stated that the company currently has a footprint (with its PSU partner Indian Oil Corporation) in 38 GAs spread across 71 districts in different parts of the country.

Volume demand

On the gas volumes, Manglani stated that the company aims to penetrate faster in the GAs, where there is faster and higher volume demand. “Our volumes come more from the existing four GAs, while the new GAs are slowly and steadily adding to it. This will be more in the nature of modular process, in which we will keep adding more volumes as we see demand coming in. For now, we are having a steady growth of close to about 9 per cent on year-on-year measure,” he added.

So far in the current year, with four GA licenses under the 9th round, AGL has invested close to ₹1,300 crore, while going forward for the other new GAs, the company plans to have a capex of “a little over ₹5,000 crore in a five-year horizon,” he said after the company’s financial results announcements.

In a statement, Gautam Adani, Chairman, Adani Group, said, “Adani Gas has delivered all round good performance both for third quarter and nine-month period of fiscal 2020 and further aims to expand its footprint in the natural gas sector across the country. The partnership with TOTAL will further enhance Adani Gas capabilities in building the best in class assets and creating a world class organisation”.

HBL