Abu Dhabi National Oil Corporation (ADNOC) and Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC) are in talks with India to hire a part of its storage facilities, currently under construction
India, which is 79 per cent dependent on imports to meet its crude oil needs, is building underground storages at Visakhapatnam in the state Seemandhra and at Mangalore and Padur in the state of Karnataka to store about 5.33mn tonnes of crude oil, according to The Economic Times.
Dharmendra Pradhan, India’s oil minister, said, “The national oil companies of the UAE and Kuwait have expressed their interest to store about two million tons of crude oil in the caverns.”
The storages at Visakhapatnam, Mangalore and Padur are reportedly enough to meet nation’s oil requirement of about 10 days.
Official sources said that the 1.33mn tonnes storage in Seemandhra will be ready by September/October this year while the 4mn tonnes facilities in Karnataka will be completed by mid-2015.
With the commissioning of Visakhapatnam storage, India is likely to join nations like the US, Japan and China that have strategic reserves.
Originally, India Strategic Petroleum Reserves Limited (ISPRL), the state-owned firm building the strategic stockpile, was to build the Visakhapatnam facility by October 2011 while the Mangalore storages were to be mechanically completed by November 2012. The storage at Padur was scheduled for completion in December 2012. However, construction got delayed.
The facilities in Vishakhapatnam, Mangalore and Padur will cost US$169mn, US$200mn and US$275mn.
