With low Petroleum Prices in 2020, India's SPRs filled to full capacity
03 Feb 2021 15:24:30
New Delhi, Feb 2: Indian Strategic Petroleum Reserve Limited (ISPRL), a Govt of India Special Purpose Vehicle, has established Strategic Petroleum Reserves (SPR) facilities with total capacity of 5.33 Million Metric Tonnes (MMT) at 3 locations of Vishakhapatnam, Mangaluru and Padur. As per the consumption pattern of 2019-20, the total capacity is estimated to provide for about 9.5 days of crude oil requirement.
The Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) in the country have additional storage facilities for crude oil and petroleum products for 64.5 days, thus the current total national capacity for storage of crude oil and petroleum products is 74 days. Taking advantage of low crude oil prices in April/May 2020, the Strategic Petroleum Reserves have been filled to full capacity, leading to notional savings of approximately Rs 5000 crore.
The Union Govt has given ‘in principle’ approval in June 2018, under Phase II of the SPR Programme, for establishing two additional SPR facilities with total storage capacity of 6.5 MMT at two locations namely of Chandikhol in Odisha (4 MMT) and Padur in Karnataka (2.5 MMT). As per the consumption pattern of 2019-20, 6.5 MMT SPR capacity is estimated to provide for about additional 12 days of India’s crude oil requirement.