GAIL (India) Limited (formerly known as Gas Authority of India Ltd.) is an Indian state-owned energy corporation with primary interests in the trade, transmission production and distribution of natural gas. GAIL also has interests in the exploration and production of solar and wind power, telecom and telemetry services (GAILTEL) and electricity generation. GAIL was founded as the Gas Authority of India Ltd. in August 1984 under the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas to build, operate and maintain the HVJ Gas Pipeline. On 1 February 2013, the Indian government conferred GAIL with Maharatna status along with 14 other Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs).
GAIL owns and operates a network of around 13,722 km (8,526 mi) of natural gas pipelines and is building around 6,000 km (3,728 mi) of pipelines of its own and about 2,000 km (1,243 mi) through two joint ventures, as part of the National Gas Grid. The Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board has authorised GAIL to build the 1,755 km (1,091 mi) long Mumbai-Nagpur-Jharsuguda gas pipeline. In 2023, GAIL completed the world's first ship-to-ship LNG transfer.
The Gas Authority of India Ltd. was incorporated in August 1984 as a Public Sector Undertaking (PSU) of the Government of India under the Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas (MoP&NG) to build, operate and maintain HVJ gas pipeline. The 1,750 km (1,087 mi) long pipeline was one of the largest natural gas pipeline projects in the world and was built at a cost of ₹17 billion (US$180 million). Construction began in June 1987 and was energised by July 1989.
In November 1988, GAIL received approval to build a ₹3 billion (US$31 million) LPG extraction plant in Vijaipur with a capacity of 400,000 tpa. Phase I of the plant, with a capacity of 200,000 tpa, was commissioned in 1990-91, eight months ahead of schedule. Phase II was commissioned in February 1992.
GAIL entered into a joint venture agreement with British Gas on 6 December 1994 to create Mahanagar Gas Limited to implement the Bombay City Gas Distribution project. GAIL was awarded Navratna status by the Indian government on 1 January 1997, in acknowledgement of its "excellent track record" and "potential to become a global giant" and providing it with greater autonomy. Later in 1997, GAIL began its city gas distribution pilot project in New Delhi by setting up nine compressed natural gas (CNG) stations. In 1998, GAIL entered into a joint venture with the Bharat Petroleum and the Government of Delhi to create Indraprastha Gas to implement the Delhi gas distribution network.
In March 2000, GAIL commissioned a petrochemical plant with a capacity to process 300,000 tonnes of ethylene to produce 260,000 tonnes of HDPE and LLDPE in Pata, Auraiya district in Uttar Pradesh. The plant, connected to the HVJ pipeline converts natural gas to petrochemicals. In 2016, the plant capacity was doubled to produce 400,000 tons of PE per year. In 2019, In 2018-19, the plant's capacity was doubled to 810,000 tonnes per year. In April 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic in India, lack of market demand caused GAIL to shutdown the plant.
GAIL commissioned the 1,269 km (789 mi) Jamnagar-Loni LPG pipeline. It was the world's longest LPG pipeline when commissioned and supplied 1.7 million TPA to Northern India.
To secure gas for its mainstream business, the Exploration and Production department was created. Today, GAIL is a partner in the Daewoo-OVL-LED consortium in two offshore blocks in Myanmar. The bulk of its blocks is located in India, in the areas of the Gulf of Khambhat, the Assam-Arakan basin, the Mahanadi River Basin, the K-G (Krishna Godavari) basin, and the Kaveri river basin.
GAIL has diversified into petrochemicals, telecom and liquid hydrocarbons other than gas infrastructure. The company has also extended its presence in power, liquefied natural gas (LNG), regasification, city gas distribution and exploration & production through participation in equity and joint ventures. Following these additional ventures, the Gas Authority of India was renamed GAIL (India) Limited on 22 November 2002.
GAIL (India) Limited has shown organic growth in gas transmission through the years by building a large network of trunk pipelines covering a length of around 10,700 kilometres (6,600 mi). Leveraging this, GAIL played a key role as a gas market developer in India for decades, catering primarily to major industrial sectors like power, fertilizer production and city gas distribution. GAIL transmits more than 160 million cubic metres per of gas per day at standard conditions through its dedicated pipelines and has more than 70% market share in both gas transmission and marketing.
GAIL owns the prominent Hazira-Vijaipur-Jagdishpur cross-country pipeline, spanning 2,300 km (1,429 mi) with a capacity to handle 33.4 million cubic metres per day at standard temperatures and pressures. As of 2022, the company owns and operates more than 11,000 km (6,835 mi) of inter-provincial gas pipelines, having a presence in 22 states within India. It also owns and operates more than 2,000 kilometres of LPG pipelines in the country, spanning Jamnagar in Gujarat to Loni in Uttar Pradesh. The company also owns and operates seven mega LPG recovery plants in the country today and has to its credit almost 20% of domestic LPG produced and supplied for domestic usage through its sister PSUs like IOCL, BPCL and HPCL. GAIL is one of the major petrochemical conglomerates in the country today with India's largest gas-based petrochemicals in operation since 1999. In petrochemicals, it has its own gas-based integrated petrochemical plant and also the ownership of 70% in dual fuel petrochemicals in Assam, Brahmaputra Cracker and Polymer Limited and one of the major equity partners in OPal.
The company supplies gas to power plants for the generation of over 4,000 MW of power to Fertilizer plants for the production of 10 million tonnes of urea and several other industries. The regional pipelines are in Mumbai, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Pondicherry, Assam, Tripura, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi. The company has established six liquefied petroleum gas processing plants, two at Vijaipur, MP, one at Waghodia, Gujarat, one at Gandhar, Gujarat, one at Auraiya, UP and one each in Lakwa, Assam and Usar, Maharashtra. These plants can produce nearly 1 million tonnes per annum of LPG. GAIL has also set up several compressor stations for boosting the gas pressure to desired levels for its customers and internal users.
In 2001, GAIL commissioned the world's longest and India's first cross-state LPG transmission pipeline running from Jamnagar in Gujarat to Loni in Uttar Pradesh. The total length of this LPG pipeline is 1,415 km (879 mi).
GAIL has started working on the Urja Ganga Gas Pipeline Project, contracted under Narendra Modi. This was earlier planned to construct between Jagdishpur in Uttar Pradesh to Haldia in West Bengal for a total length of 2050 kilometres, but reconfigurations have led the pipeline to connect Varanasi to the gas grid, linking it up to the Dhamra terminal. The line, being longer than 2500 kilometres, will be constructed in three phases. Its route will connect Adani Group's five million tonne per annum Dhamra LNG import terminal in Odisha. In the first phase, a trunk pipeline from Phulpur (Allahabad) will be laid to Dobhi (Gaya) in Bihar with spur lines to Barauni and Patna. The 755 km (469 mi) Phase-1 project will cost Rs 3,200 crore and is planned to be completed in December 2018. GAIL already has a line up to Phulpur. It is raising the capacity of this pipeline by laying a 672 km (418 mi) parallel line from Vijaipur in Madhya Pradesh to Phulpur via Auriaya in Uttar Pradesh at the cost of Rs 4,300 crore. In Phase II, a 1,200 km (746 mi) line would be laid from Dobhi to Bokaro/Ranchi in Jharkhand and Angul and Dharma in Odisha at the cost of Rs 5,565 crore. Phase III will involve laying a 583 km (362 mi) line to Haldia at the cost of Rs 3,425 crore.