Dabhol to generate 2100MW by Nov

Ratnagiri Gas & Power's Dabhol plant will start generating power at full steam and Maharashtra will start getting around 2100MW power by November, Chandan Roy, chairman and managing director, RGPPL, said.

He was speaking on the sidelines of the meeting called by state energy minister Dileep Patil to take stock of progress on various issues related to the Dabhol project.

Dabhol working at full blast will give some respite to Maharashtra which is facing power shortage of around 5700 MW.

"We expect the pipeline between Uran and Dabhol will be completed by end of May which will allow us to bring gas to Dabhol plant and once, we start getting gas, we will be able to start operating third block of 700MW by end of July," Roy  said. "By mid-November we also expect to make first block of 350MW (which is currently in outage for repairs) to be operational."

"Though the requirement of gas for Dabhol is around 2.1 million tons, PetroNet has assured us of a supply of 1.2 million tons, which will allow us to run two block on gas," Roy said.

However, the decision on whether to continue to run block 2 on naphtha or go for spot buying of gas will be taken at later stage, he added.