The Hindu Business Line : IOC to begin work on Rs 400-cr Chennai-Madurai pipeline soon

INDIAN Oil Corporation Ltd (IOC) will commence major construction work of the Rs 400-crore, 683 km long cross-country Chennai-Tiruchi-Madurai Petroleum Product Pipeline in Tamil Nadu in the third week of August.

Contracts for mainline pipe laying, parallel telecommunications and optical fibre cable laying etc have been awarded. Essar Constructions will lay the main pipeline, according to Mr A.M. Uplenchwar, Director (Pipelines), IOC.

The coated pipes being manufactured by Maharashtra Seamless Ltd and Surya Roshini would be reaching the site in the next two weeks, he told Business Line over telephone from New Delhi.

The 683-km-long, mega pipeline project is the first of its kind, down South for the oil major, which at present owns and operates 7,575 km-long network of petroleum product and crude oil pipelines in the North, West and Eastern of parts of India.

The pipeline project is scheduled for completion by July 2005. It will help IOC evacuate petroleum products from the 6.5 mtpa refinery of Chennai Petroleum Corporation Ltd, its subsidiary in Chennai, he added.

The mega-pipeline project consists of laying 14-inch diameter, 256-km pipeline between Chennai and Asanur; a 10-inch diameter, 270-km pipeline between Asanur to Madurai via Tiruchi and 12-inch diameter, 157-km long branch line from Asanur to Sankari. In addition, facilities for delivery and marketing the petroleum products at Tiruchi and Sankari.

The construction team of the project has begun the excavation of earth to lay the underground petroleum pipelines. The construction work of marketing facilities at Tiruchi and Sankari has also started and IOC's top management is closely monitoring the project to complete it well within the scheduled time.

The 683-km long pipeline will negotiate 13 railway crossings and 15 national highway crossings. It would also pass through two major rivers at the Coleroon River and the Cauvery River and using the Horizontal Directional Drilling (HDD) method to cross these rivers.

The trench-less technology method of laying pipelines through HDD method will ensure crossing of perennial rivers and is environmentally proven method world over for pipeline construction.

The pipeline is being installed to promptly and ceaselessly feed petroleum products to high demand centres at Tiruchi, Madurai and Sankari, near Salem in Tamil Nadu, Mr Uplenchwar said.

The marketing set up of IOC in the region is expected to benefit with the haulage of petroleum products effectively and economically through the pipeline. The road and railway traffic congestion in the region will be eased to a considerable extent, as the bulk transportation of petroleum products will be through the underground pipeline , company sources said.

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