'The Crude Buffer': Modi Govt Approves Two More Strategic Petroleum Reserves Of 6.5 Million MT At Chandikhol And Padur

Under Phase II of the petroleum reserve programme, the Modi Government has approved in July 2021 for establishing two additional commercial-cum-strategic facilities with a total storage capacity of 6.5 Million Metric Tonnes (MMT) underground storages at Chandikhol (4 MMT) and Padur (2.5 MMT) on Public-Private Partnership (PPP) mode.

The Request for Proposal for building these storage facilities is under finalization. An amount of Rs 210 crore was allocated in budget FY 2020-21 for land acquisition, and the same has been disbursed to Indian Strategic Petroleum Reserve Limited (ISPRL).

This information was given by the Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas Rameswar Teli in a written reply in the Lok Sabha on Monday (26 July).

Under Phase I of the strategic petroleum reserves (SPR) programme, the Government of India, through its Special Purpose Vehicle, ISPRL, has established petroleum storage facilities with a total capacity of 5.33 MMT.

These strategic reserves were established at 3 locations Visakhapatnam (1.33 MMT), Mangaluru (1.5 MMT) and Padur (2.5 MMT), and all the storage facilities have been filled with crude oil.

The petroleum reserves established under Phase I are strategic, and the crude oil stored in these reserves will be used during an oil shortage event, as and when declared so by the Government of India.