India dips in to weakened crude market to fill up its strategic oil reserves

By OEM Update Editorial April 23, 2020 4:43 pm IST

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. MoPNG has already informed this development through a tweet that it is going an extra mile to meet India’s energy security despite Covid-19 challenge.M Venkatesh, MD, MRPL confirmed that the first consignment of 2 million barrels by MRPL and second consignment of 1 million barrel by IOCL has already been successfully unloaded into the caverns. ISPRL stated that taking advantage of low crude oil prices, it has started filling the strategic reserves to enhance the energy security of the nation. MRPL, IOCL, BPCL and HPCL are associated in this exercise to fill the three strategic reserves.