Union Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas Dharmendra Pradhan on Tuesday invited companies to develop 6.5 million tonnes (MT) of crude storage capacities across the country, as the Centre eyes to increase crude and petroleum products storage capacity from existing 74 days to 90 days.
India’s existing strategic petroleum reserve facilities are located in Visakhapatnam (1.3 MT), Mangaluru (1.5 MT) and Padur (2.5 MT). As per the consumption pattern of FY20, the storages can provide for about 9.5 days of crude oil requirement. State-run oil marketing companies (OMCs) can stock for another 64.5 days.
The government has already given ‘in-principle’ approval for building two additional storage facilities with total capacity of 6.5 MT under the public-private partnership model at Chandikhol, Odisha (4 MT) and Padur, Karnataka (2.5 MT).
