The Hindu Business Line : Country’s first LPG cavern to be opened in Visakhapatnam today

The Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas, Mr Murli Deora, will inaugurate the first underground LPG cavern in the country, built in the vicinity of the Dolphin’s Nose (locally-known as Yarada hill) in the port, on Monday. The Chief Minister, Dr Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy, will preside over the function.

The cavern — South Asia LPG Company Pvt Ltd — was built at a cost of Rs 333 crore, with the HPCL and the Total (a French major) being equal partners.

The foundation stone for the cavern was laid in 2004 by the then Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas, Mr Ram Naik.

The cavern, consisting of two storage facilities, has a capacity of 60,000 tonnes and in the last week of December a vessel arrived from Saudi Arabia to unload LPG. The LPG was received into the HPCL bottling plant and subsequently evacuated into the cavern, after conducting the requisite tests.

Storage

The LPG will be stored in the cavern at 162 metres below the mean sea level and the deepest portion of the cavern will be 196 metres below the mean sea level. It will have a volume of 1,23,600 cubic metres.

It is said that caverns are not only cost-effective, but are fireproof and leak-proof. They are also protected from natural calamities and man-made calamities such as bombings.

There is also a plan to built an underground cavern here for storing crude, with a capacity of a million tonnes, at a cost of Rs 1,650 crore. Two such crude caverns are also being planned at Mangalore port.