Ace Energy Infra completes vital link in Barauni-Guwahati Natural Gas Pipeline

Ace Energy Infrastructure Pvt. Ltd., a part of Mumbai based Ace Pipeline Group, completed a vital link in the Barauni-Guwahati Natural Gas Pipeline being executed by GAIL (India) Limited as part of Pradhan Mantri Urja Ganga project, by  finishing the tunnelling under the confluence of Kanamakra, Aie & Manas River in Chirang District in Assam, near Bongaigaon city.

Ace Energy has now finished building a tunnel with a diameter of 1600 mm across a total length of 1200 metres at a depth of 11–12 metres under the river bed, with strata consisting of extremely hard and abrasive boulders and a river flowing to the brim for the past three months due to flooding in its upper reaches in Bhutan. This marks the end of micro tunnelling in the project.

The 24-inch carbon steel pipeline needed to transmit natural gas through this tunnel will soon be installed by the construction team. Once this is done, it will serve as a final link to complete a 1600 km network of gas pipelines from Barauni in Central India to Guwahati in North-East India, and further from Guwahati right upto Numaligarh crossing major rivers such as Subhansiri and Brhamapura as part of extension of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Urja Ganga Project which will bring natural gas connectivity from Guwahati to Numaligarh and all towns and cities of the North-east.

MECON Limited, a company based in Ranchi, led the engineering activities for the project after being chosen by GAIL to serve as a project management consultant. "The breakthrough of a tunnel boring machine is the culmination of months of back-breaking hard work, with front line crew working 24 hours a day in rain and hail, and the efforts of project managers, designers, and countless other faces behind the scenes who ensured the front-end crew would succeed," said K.B. Singh, Executive Director (Eastern Region), GAIL (India) Ltd.

Ace Energy Infrastructure Pvt. Ltd. Director Ravneet Singh said, "This milestone is a remarkable achievement for all of us, and we hope this is a forerunner for many more breakthroughs in India and also across the Globe."