Industry escapes from killer quake

Industry escapes from killer quake
ENS ECONOMIC BUREAU

MUMBAI/New Delhi, JAN 27: While the killer earthquake wreaked havoc in Gujarat, plants of major corporates like Reliance, Essar, GAIL, IPCL and Indian Oil located in industrial hubs like Hazira and Jamnagar of the state were not damaged. The Kandla port was partially hit and infrastructure facilities like power and telecom were also thrown out of gear. The stock markets are expected to take a major hit when it re-opens on Monday after a prolonged week-end, analysts said.

What is more, trade and industry is expecting a significant adverse impact on business in the months to come as the heavy human toll and damage to roads and other infrastructure is expected to affect demand for goods and services. ``Power, roads and telecom cables have taken a big hit which will take at least a year to restore... this, in turn, will affect the business sentiment,'' said an analyst.

But operations at India's busiest Port, Kandla, were partly affected by the massive earthquake. There were reports of an oil slick in Kandla but it was not clear if it was from tankers berthed at the Port or from underground storage tanks in the Port area. The Kandla port had suffered a criplling blow in 1998 killer Cyclone too.

``We have had some damage at Kandla Port,'' said a Kandla port official, adding he had no details. A shipping ministry spokesman later said operations at Kandla were ``partly affected'' but no other information was available as communication links had been badly hit by the quake. Kandla caters to the hinterland of western, central and northern India. It handles crucial imports of petroleum products, crude oil and chemicals and exports of agricultural commodities.

Though petrochemical plants, oil refineries and an LPG pipeline in Gujarat have not suffered damage in the earthquake, the plants were closed for more than four hours as a precautionary measure on Friday. ``Reliance oil refinery was automatically shut off due to an in-built earthquake safety measure... however by evening the plant was running smoothly,'' a Reliance spokesperson told this newspaper. ``RIL's Hazira plant, near Surat, is also running as per the schedule.'' he added.

``Product dispatch will continue normally... after checking with Jamnagar and Hazira I can say for now that our plants and people are safe,'' he said. ``The power system has since been restored and a phased start-up of the plants has started,'' he said.

Reliance's complexes at Jamnagar and Hazira are estimated to account for more than 70 per cent of the Reliance group's nine million tonne per year petrochemical production capacity. The company is using satellite commnications to talk to its employees and sent cranes and other equipments for relief work in Jamnagar city from its refinery complex, he added.

While some buildings in Essar Steel complex at Hazira were damaged due to the tremors, a company spokesman said the quake did not cause any disruption in operations and production at the steel manufacturing facility.

Government-owned Indian Oil said its refinery in Koyali suffered no damage from the quake. ``Our Koyali refinery is safe. There is no damage to life or property,'' a senior IOC official said. Koyali refinery has an average monthly output of 1.035 million tonne.

But the official said IOC's Kandla-Bhatinda oil products pipeline had been shut down by a power outage at the Port town of Kandla. The pipeline, which has a capacity of 8.5 million tonne, supplies oil products to the states of Gujarat, Rajasthan, Haryana, Delhi, Punjab and Himachal Pradesh.

Meanwhile, the state-run Gas Authority of India Ltd said its 1,230 km (769 mile) LPG pipeline from western India to just North of New Delhi was undamaged by the earthquake. ``There is no damage to the pipeline at all,''GAIL executive director of projects B S Negi said. Built by GAIL at a cost of Rs 1,230 crore, the Kandla-Lone pipelin crosses Gujarat, Rajasthan, Haryana, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh states and has an annual capacity of 1.7 million tonnes.

Oil production in ONGC wells in Gujarat was disrupted for four hours and some ONGC buildings developed cracks, but major installations and equipment were intact, ONGC chairman B C Bora said in Dehradun.

He said there were some cracks in several ONGC buildings in Gujarat, but the major installations and equipment were intact. Production of oil in Bombay offshore was also not affected, Bora said.

Bid to restore power, telecom

National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) has sent a team of engineers from its Vindhyachal (Madhya Pradesh) and Korba (Chhattisgarh) stations to Gujarat to assist the Gujarat State Electricity Board in improving and restoring the power supply which was affected badly due to Friday's earthquake.

NTPC has two gas-based power stations in Gujarat, Kawas with a capacity of 645 MW and Gandhar with a capacity of 648 MW. One 106 MW gas turbine and one 110.5 MW steam turbine in Kawas and one steam turbine with a capacity of 255 MW at Gandhar tripped due to earthquake. These units were brought back within two hours, NTPC statement said.

Communication network in the Kutch district of Gujarat has been severly damaged due to yesterday's earthquake and the government is setting up C-DOT exchnages to restore the facilities on temporary basis.

``Most of the buildings and exchanges have been damaged. Seven employees of the department have died in the severe earthquake yesterday,'' Union Communication Minister Ram Vilas Paswan said here. The government has already set up a C-DOT exchange in Bhuj connected with Rajkot exchange, Paswan said adding that the C-DOT exchange would be able to provide 2000 connections based on microwave link.

The Minister said officials were finding it difficult to take the equipment in the affected areas as most of the roads were blocked due to heavy traffic and one of the bridges being damaged.