According to Gail chairman, Prashanto Banerjee, his company wants the development of such a grid to come under the purview of a 'national' company in order to avoid "duplication of pipeline infrastructure would hurt the companies and lead to sub-optimal utilisation of infrastructure."

The company is currently having discussions with Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) to make use of such a network to transports the gas mined at RIL's Krishna Godavari basin at competitive prices and Banerjee has stated that it would offer a similar offer to other producers as well. According to Banerjee, "Gail will offer attractive terms and the grid will open up the entire market to producers."

RIL had earlier announced plans to set up a pipeline to transport its Krishna Godavari basin gas from Kakinada to Goa.

Gail's executive director business development and joint ventures, Rajiv Khanna, has confirmed that this national grid would connect major consumption centres with gas fields, LNG terminals and other cross-border gas sourcing points.

Should the grid be developed, as envisioned by Gail, it would cover the Dahej-Vijaipur, Dahej-Uran-Pune, Kakinada-Hyderabad-Pune, Kakinada-Calcutta, Kakinada-Chennai, Chennai-Bangalore, Dabhol-Bangalore-Coimbatore-Kochi and Calcutta-Jagdishpur areas.

In related news, Banerjee has confirmed that Gail would consider 'unbundling' its gas trading activity and may spin off this side of its business into a separate listed entity. Gail would still remain the parent company and will concentrate mainly on gas transmission and petrochemicals.