India bullish on strategic oil reserves facility

India has decided to fast track its plan to augment its strategic oil reserves facility with 90-100 days stock to shield itself from supply disruptions coming from perennial political risk in the prime oil supplying countries in the Middle East and Africa.

The reserve will also help the country cope with demand spike and price rise in the event of border skirmishes and war like situation that played out with Pakistan recently.

Sources in the Oil Ministry said that apart from the operational 5.33 million tonnes( mt) underground strategic reserve facility atv isak ha pat nam, man galore and Padur, another 6.5 mt facility is coming up at Padur in Karnataka and Chandikhole in Odisha.

Work on two more facilities at Bikaner in Rajasthan and Rajkot in Gujarat would be initiated soon. When complete, these would hold enough oil to meet domestic requirements for over a month.

In addition, the Oil Ministry has asked the Indian Strategic Petroleum Reserves Limited (ISPRL), a special purpose vehicle of the Oil Industry Development Board, to identify new sites so that oil storage facility for 90-100 days can be made ready in the country at all times, the sources quoted above said.

This would enable the country to meet the requirements during any crisis as India imports more than 80 per cent of its crude requirements. It would also come to the rescue of the consuming sectors in times of volatility in oil markers.

ISPRL Chief Executive Officer and Managing Dire ct orh.p.s.ahuja was not available for comments.