Adani gets highest number of city gas licences, wins 11 bids
NEW DELHI: Billionaire Gautam Adani’s group on Friday emerged as the biggest winner of gas retailing licences, winning rights to sell CNG in 11 cities, including Allahabad.
Adani won rights to retail CNG to automobiles and piped cooking gas to households in six cities on its own and another five in joint venture with stateowned Indian Oil Corp. (IOC), according to results of 48 out of the 86 cities that were bid out in the country’s biggest city gas distribution (CGD) bid round.
According to the Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board, IOC on its own won rights to four cities. Bharat Gas Resources Ltd, a unit of stateowned Bharat Petroleum Corp. Ltd (BPCL), won a licence for six cities, the same number for which Torrent Gas Pvt. Ltd too made winning bids. State gas utility GAIL’S retailing arm, GAIL Gas managed rights for three cities. When the bid round closed last month, IOC, BPCL and Adani Gas Ltd were the top bidders.
Of the 86 cities offered for retailing of CNG to automobiles and piped cooking gas to households in the 9th CGD bid round, IOC bid for 34 cities on its own and another 20 in partnership with Adani Gas Ltd. Adani Gas on its own bid for 32 cities. Bharat Gas Resources Ltd bid for as many as 53 cities while GAIL Gas Ltd put in offers for 34 cities. Gujarat-based Torrent Gas Pvt. Ltd bid for 31 cities while Gujarat Gas Ltd put in offers for 21 areas. Petronet LNG Ltd, India’s largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) importer, sought to foray into CGD business by bidding for the licence in seven cities. Indraprastha Gas Ltd, which retails CNG in the national capital region, put in bids for 11 cities. According to PNGRB, Adani Gas won rights to Surendranagar, Barwala, Navsari, Kheda and Porbandar districts in Gujarat as well as Balasore in Odisha. Its joint venture with IOC, Indian Oil-adani Gas Pvt Ltd won Kannur in Kerala, Gaya in Bihar, Bulandshahr, and Allahabad in Uttar Pradesh.
IOC won Aurangabad in Bihar, Rewa in Madhya Pradesh and Jagtial in Telangana.