GAIL ties up $100-mn loan from Bank of Tokyo
07 Dec 2011
State-owned gas utility GAIL India Ltd said on Tuesday that it has secured a $100-million five-year term loan from Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ to part-finance its pipeline expansion plans.
This is the second loan from a Japanese lender this year after a $150-million credit from Bank of Tokyo was sewed up in June. The latest loan is the first in a series of three tie-ups that GAIL plans to enter into for a total of $300 million in external borrowings.
"The loan agreement was signed between GAIL director (finance) P K Jain and Bank of Tokyo general manager Naoki Isetani here yesterday," the company said in a press statement.
The debt would help GAIL fund ongoing expansion plans and new projects of around $9 billion.
GAIL is presently implementing projects to lay 5,500 km of pipelines at an estimated cost of Rs25,000 crore. When completed, the capacity of GAIL's pipelines would increase to over 300 million standard cubic metres per day from 175 mmscmd at present.
The company is also in the process of doubling the capacity of its petrochemicals plant at Pata, in Uttar Pradesh, from 446,000 tonnes per annum at present to 900,000 tonnes per annum by 2014.