By IANS,
Agartala : After a six-year uncertainty, the Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) has finally agreed to provide natural gas for the 104 MW capacity Monarchak thermal power plant in Tripura, officials said Friday.
ONGC signed an agreement with The state-owned North Eastern Electric Power Corp (NEEPCO) in New Delhi Thursday, for supplying 0.5 million cubic metres gas per day for 15 years.
The deal has revived the Rs 30.6 billion combined cycle power plant project, which is now expected to be commissioned by October 2010, NEEPCO chairman-cum-managing director J. Barkakati told IANS over telephone from New Delhi.
Sanctioned six years ago, the Monarchak thermal plant in western Tripura had an initial projected capacity of 280 MW. Following the new gas supply agreement with ONGC, this has been revised to 104 MW.
The central petroleum, power and finance ministries decided to revive the Monarchak project with a lesser capacity as ONGC refused to supply adequate gas, Tripura Power Minister Manik Dey said.
NEEPCO has already floated a global tender for the combined cycle project, for which water would also be used to generate power, Barkakati said.
The corporation, which supplies 64 percent of the region’s total power generation, has a combined generation capacity of 1,130 MW from its various power projects across the northeast. It has also decided to commission two coal-based 240 MW thermal power projects in Meghalaya.
Meanwhile, ONGC would also commission a 750 MW capacity mega power project in south Tripura’s Palatana, 60 km south of here, and is expected to be operational by 2012.
The much expected commissioning of the Rs.50 billion power project, a co-generation waste heat recovery power plant and ONGC’s first major commercial project, is likely to be delayed due to difficulties in transporting heavy turbines and machineries from abroad to Tripura.