Indraprastha Gas Ltd (IGL) has raised prices of compressed natural gas (CNG) by 1.75 per kg beginning Saturday because of a weakening rupee and a halt in cheaper domestic supplies from Reliance Industries' D6 block. Now CNG will now cost 33.75 per kg in Delhi and 37.90 per kg in Noida, Greater Noida and Ghaziabad.
Vehicle owners will have to pay 1.75 per kg more in Delhi and 2 extra in Noida, Greater Noida and Ghaziabad, a company statement said. CNG prices were last raised three months ago.
IGL has, however, spared household consumers using piped natural gas (PNG) but a price hike looks imminent if imports of costly R-LNG continue, company executives said requesting anonymity. Imported gas is over four times costlier than the D6 gas, which is sold at $4.20 per unit. IGL had raised PNG rates on September 1 from 18.95 per unit to 22 per unit.
With a complete halt in KG-D6 supplies due to decrease in production, IGL is left with no other alternative but to source costly spot R-LNG to meet the ever-increasing demand, Ravindran said.
"The base price of natural gas procured by IGL from all its sources (APM, KG-D6 and long term and spot R-LNG) is in dollars, which has appreciated by 14% vis-A -vis the rupee since the last price revision of CNG," he said.
Ravindran said the impact on the per-km running cost of vehicles would be minor. "For autos, the increase would be 5 paise per km, for taxis 8 paise and in case of buses it would be 50 paise, which translates into less than a paisa per passenger-km."
