India dips in to weakened crude market to fill up its strategic oil reserves
MANGALURU: India in a concerted effort to step up its energy security and taking advantage of prevailing very low crude oil prices in the international market is playing an active role through coastal Karnataka based Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Limited in filling Indian Strategic Petroleum Reserve Limited (ISPRL) underground crude oil caverns in Mangaluru and Padur. The other strategic reserve of ISPRL is located at Vishakapatnam.
Ministry of petroleum and natural gas has mandated ISPRL to work closely with public sector oil companies including MRPL to achieve the target of filling up Mangaluru and Padur caverns. India has built 5.33 million tonnes of emergency storage that is enough to meet its oil needs for 9.5 days it these three strategic reserves and also has allowed foreign oil companies to store oil there on condition that it can use this stockpile in case of an emergency.
Series of crude oil cargos of varying volumes from 1 to 2 million barrels that MRPL, IOCL and BPCL have sourced, will be unloaded in the single point mooring (SPM) of MRPL under jurisdiction of New Mangalore Port Trust during April and May before onset of monsoon in the region.
