A move by the downstream regulator Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board (PNGRB) to declare 20 of Indian Oil Corp’s pipelines with around a half of its total pipeline capacity of 80 MT as “common carrier” would hamper refinery and pipeline development plan impacting the entire industry, according to the fuel retailer.<\/p>\n
If implemented, IOC would have to share around 38 million tonne of its pipeline capacity across a 5,900 km long network with competitors, including private sector firms like RIL and Essar. These pipelines connect IOC’s refineries with its marketing depots across the country.<\/p>\n
The firm says its pipelines are meant for captive use and are “dedicated pipelines” under the PNGRB Act of 2006 and PNGRB (Authorizing entities to lay, build, operate and expand petroleum and petroleum products pipelines) Regulations of 2010 and without such dedicated pipelines, no refinery can be conceptualized and implemented on economic viability.<\/p>\n
“If a pipeline originating from a refinery is not treated as a dedicated pipeline, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to visualize as to how a refinery can be planned with certainty as to the availability of pipeline for evacuation of refinery’s products,” according to the company. PNGRB had last month issued notice to IOC and other affected parties – BPCL and GAIL – seeking responses.<\/p>\n
The company had also argued in case a third party gets authorization for laying a pipeline for such a planned refinery and fails to lay the pipeline, it would not be possible for the refinery to operate and the entity would not be able to evacuate products, defeating the very purpose of planning and setting up the refinery. “This situation would also severely impact product availability in the country and will be against public interest,” according to IOC.<\/p>\n
The Oil Marketing Company (OMC) has also told PNGRB its pipelines are laid for transfer of its own products to its own depots and therefore, does not entail any “consumer”. Also, because there is no sale involved, there cannot be any resale.<\/p>\n
The concept of “Common Carrier” is defined in section 2 (j) of the 2006 Act. It says: “Common Carrier means such pipelines for transportation of petroleum, petroleum products and natural gas by more than one entity as the board may declare or authorize from time to time on a non-discriminatory open access basis..but does not include pipelines laid to supply petroleum products or natural gas to a specific consumer or crude oil.”<\/p>\n
IOC, therefore, argues a pipeline can de declared “common carrier” only when there is more than one consumer. The company says its pipelines exclusively cater to its own logistic requirements, and are touted to be safe, environment-friendly and cost-effective mode of transporting its petroleum products compared to use of roads and railways.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A move by the downstream regulator Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board (PNGRB) to declare 20 of Indian Oil Corp’s pipelines with around a half of its total pipeline capacity of 80 MT as “common carrier” would hamper refinery and pipeline development plan impacting the entire industry, according to the fuel retailer. If implemented, IOC would have to share around 38 million tonne of its pipeline capacity across a 5,900 km long network with competitors, including private sector firms like RIL and Essar. These pipelines connect IOC’s refineries with its marketing depots across the country. The firm says its pipelines […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[133],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-oil-gas"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37154"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37154\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}