New Delhi, March 27: GAIL India has decided to bring gas from the Myanmar fields by CNG ships. The public sector gas company today said eight firms are interested in shipping the gas to eastern India. The companies are: EnerSea Transport from the US; Exmar Marine, Belgium; MitSui K-Line and Marubeni, Japan; Malaysia International Shipping Corporation; an outfit each from Norway and Canada; and Mumbai-based Ardeshir B.Cursetjee & Sons.

These companies have responded to the expression of interest floated by GAIL to transport compressed natural gas (CNG) from the A1 block in Myanmar. ONGC and GAIL have a 30 per cent stake in the oilfield.

GAIL has also explored the proposal to transport the gas through a pipeline via Bangladesh, but dropped it on cost consideration. The company had also envisaged a longer pipeline between India and Myanmar, bypassing Bangladesh.

In addition to the high costs involved in investing in a pipeline, stiff negotiations between India and Myanmar over the price of gas also influenced GAIL’s decision. Myanmar’s asking price of around $5 per mbtu (million British thermal unit) for the gas was unacceptable to India. Myanmar had then signed an MoU to sell its share of the gas to China.

Ferrying gas as CNG also costs less than shipping it as LNG since it does not require heavy investment in liquefaction plants at source and a regassification plant at delivery point.

While carrying out a pre-feasibility study, GAIL had toyed with the idea of bringing gas from Myanmar through a pipeline. Given the prospective size of the gasfield and the distance of 600 km from the field to the east coast of India, the option of transporting CNG by ship will provide the flexibility to deliver the gas at various coastal locations of India.

CNG transportation provides the flexibility to increase the scale of operations by simply adding ships with a gradual increase in supply from the same or nearby sources.