The Hindu Business Line : IOC to set up LPG import facility at Kochi port

Kochi, Jan. 22 Indian Oil Corporation, to meet the growing demand for domestic LPG, is setting up an LPG import facility at the land allotted to it by Cochin Port Trust.

The facility, to be set up at an investment of Rs 170 crore, will be at the 15 acres of land allotted by the Port Trust at Puthuvypeen near here. The IOC management has given the approval to go ahead with the project and the company is waiting the formal approval from the port authorities on the land allotment.

A senior official in the IOC here told Business Line that it would take 30 months to complete the project subject to the clearances from various statutory authorities such as the State Government, the Pollution Control Board and the Environment Ministry before starting the construction work.

The import facility at Kochi will have a capacity to handle 6 lakh tonnes per annum especially to cater to the LPG demand of the entire Kerala and Tamil Nadu markets. The new facility at Puthuvypeen will handle bulk LPG arrived in ships and stored in the terminals at the project site. Later it will be moved to the bottling plant at Irumpanam near here by road by tankers.

At present, IOC is importing 40 per cent of its requirement through Mangalore. Moreover, the frequent hartals and strikes in Kerala are interrupting the road movement of LPG from Mangalore to the Kochi bottling plant.

With the setting up of a facility at Kochi, IOC would be able to meet the 100 per cent demand of LPG and save time and money in transportation, the official said.

The facility in Kochi could be an ideal investment considering the logistical bottlenecks in sourcing it from Mangalore for catering to Kerala market, he added.

He pointed out that LPG demand in Kerala is expected to grow by 3 to 5 per cent per annum for the next five years as more and more domestic consumers are switching over to LPG.

The market demand for LPG from domestic and commercial sectors is about 38,000 tonnes per month. About 20,000 tonnes is being sourced from BPCL-Kochi Refinery and the remaining is imported through Mangalore Port. The per capita consumption of domestic LPG in Kerala is 7.2 kg per month.

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