By Laxman Kafle
Kathmandu, Dec. 9: Altogether 13 consultant companies have applied for conducting feasibility study of gas plants which were proposed by the Nepal Oil Corporation (NOC).
“We have received 13 proposals of different consultant companies from Iran, India, China and Pakistan to carry feasibility study to establish gas plants in Jhapa and Janakpur,” said Sushil Bhattarai, deputy managing director of NOC.
He said that seven proposals were received for Jhapa plant and six for Janakpur.
As per the decision of the board of directors of NOC, it had called tender for the consulting companies for the feasibility study of gas plants in Jhapa and Janakpur.
According to him, the NOC would select the required consultant companies within a few weeks.
The selected companies would study cost, fire safety system, soil test, environment impact assessment and other engineering designs, he said.
“Our plan is to start the construction works of the project within the current fiscal year by selecting the contractor companies through bidding based on the report of the feasibility study,” he told The Rising Nepal.
The NOC has set a target to establish gas plants in two places with minimum capacity of 3,000 tonnes each to stock cooking gas under the country’s federal structure, he said.
NOC has no structure to stock LPG.
According to Bhattarai, the NOC has no intention to interfere in the market after the establishment of bottling plant, but its major target is to keep stock of LPG and distribute gas to the private gas plants in bulk.
“We will introduce our own brand of cooking gas cylinder in the market for safety and supply of quality gas. We decided to establish the gas plants considering that the presence of government is a must in the distribution of essential products like cooking gas," he said.
Presence of government and the sate-owned companies is a must to control the monopoly of private sector in trade and maintain check and balance in the market, he said.
When the government has its own bottling plants, the private sector needs to be more competitive to sell cooking gas at a reasonable price, he said.
Due to the frequent strikes called by the private companies, the consumers often face shortage of cooking gas, he said.
According to him, the NOC has planned to introduce normal weight cylinder (14.2 kg) along with the cylinders weighing 5 kg and 10 kg in the market for multipurpose uses, mostly targeting the disaster period.
"It will be easier to distribute small size of cylinders to the victims during the disasters," Bhattarai said.
Gas Entrepreneurs Shiva Ghimire said that there was no need to invest in infrastructure for storing gas by the NOC at present while the government has been trying to replace consumption of gas by electricity.
“We have to focus on increasing electricity consumption for cooking also. There is no meaning of investing in gas plants at this hour,” he said.