Kochi: GAIL and Petronet LNG will set the ball rolling on mega projects worth over Rs 12,000 crore in Kerala over the next two months. With the completion of DFR, the GAIL board will give its approval to the Rs 7,000-crore gas-based petrochemicals project and allied pipeline projects worth another Rs 2,750 crore in two months.

Petronet LNG Ltd will select the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contractor for the Rs 2,300-crore LNG terminal at Kochi in the next 15 days. This was stated at a joint press conference with GAIL CMD Proshanto Banerjee and Petronet LNG CEO and MD P Dasgupta here on Friday.

GAIL is currently negotiating with Fertilisers and Chemicals Travancore Limited for 214 acres of land intended for the construction of a 5 lakh tonne petrochemical plant which will produce two varieties of polyethylene. GAIL is expecting to start work on the project, which will provide 700 permanent jobs and 15,000 indirect jobs, by early 2006. GAIL is also considering FDI support to financing the projects.

Apart from this, there will three other downstream projects — a 90-km pipeline for LNG transport to the NTPC plant at Kayamkulam costing Rs 450 crore; another 900-km pipeline costing Rs 2,000 crore for LNG transport from Kochi to Coimbatore and Bangalore via Kannur; and a Rs 300-crore city gas distribution project to begin from Kochi.

Petronet will choose one company from the four shortlisted international bidders for EPC work, which is expected to start by June 2006 and to be completed by September 2009. Currently the capacity of the Kochi LNG terminal is fixed at 5 million tonne but will be extended to 7.5 million tonne depending on demand and the availability of another 15 hectares of reclaimed land for which the company is negotiating with the State Government.

The combined capacity of Petronet''s Dahej and Kochi terminals has been projected at 15 million tonne with equal quantities of imported LNG from Qatar and Iran. For the Kochi project, Petronet has tied up demand for 5.5 million tonne in Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry. This includes 2.5 million tonne to NTPC at Kayamkulam, which will be supplied by GAIL.