PH’s AG&P gets rights to put up natural gas facilities in India

MANILA, Philippines–Atlantic, Gulf and Pacific Co. of Manila Inc. (AG&P) continues to expand its footprint in India as regulators granted the engineering firm rights to put up natural gas facilities and provide services to consumers in nine more concession areas.

The Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board (PNGRB) in New Delhi on March 1 announced that AG&P and its unit AG&P LNG Marketing Pte. Ltd. won contracts for nine out of 50 geographical areas in the 10th bidding round for natural gas concessions across India.

In this latest bidding round, AG&P won contracts to build the infrastructure network and to deliver gas to consumers in 23 districts spread out in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala.

In a statement, PNGRB said results of the latest round of bidding heralds an era that sees “the availability of convenient, environment-friendly and cheaper natural gas for more than 70 percent of the country’s population spread across 27 States and Union Territories.”

The regulatory agency said that AG&P, along with 11 other entities that won contracts, are expected within the next eight years to provide more than two billion household connections for piped natural gas and install 3,578 compressed natural gas stations for the transport sector, in additional to building a total of 54,177 inch-kilometers of steel pipeline.

“Further, the entities would be authorised to supply natural gas to industrial and commercial units in their respective (geographical areas) as per the limits provided in the CGD (city gas distribution) Authorisation Regulations,” PNGRB said.

In the 9th bidding round conducted in November 2018, AG&P won the rights to build LNG facilities in the districts Kanchipuram and Ramanathapuram, which are both in Tamil Nadu.

AG&P chief executive Joseph M. Sigelman told the INQUIRER that the company invested P1.6 billion in 2016 to upgrade its two manufacturing facilities in Batangas to meeet rising global demand for its services.

“AG&P has a dedicated LNG engineering team in Alabang, Muntinlupa, to support the company’s expanding portfolio of LNG projects in Asia, Africa and South America,” Sigelman said.

“This team complements (our) global engineering operations in Houston, Texas,” he said. “More than 30 highly qualified Filipino engineers with gas industry experience have been hired in the last year.” /jpv