The Hindu Business Line : Disruption in production affects evacuation at Numaligarh refinery

Disruptions
Barge loading of Numaligarh products, about 1,000 tonnes a month, at Silghat on the Brhamaputra River too hit.
New Jalpaiguri in West Bengal, Tatanagar in Jharkhand, which depend on supplies from the Numaligarh refinery, went dry.

Kolkata March 29 The evacuation of petroleum products out of Bharat Petroleum Corporation's Numaligarh refinery in Assam was recently hit as a sequel to disruption in production caused by the rupture of reformer tubes in the plant.

The accident took place on March 10 and for another week or so, the refinery authorities managed to maintain supply by drawing upon the inventories. After that, the evacuation of products out of the refinery dropped.

The bulk of the refinery's output is evacuated by rail, the average daily loading being around 240 wagons (in terms of four-wheelers), equivalent of two BTPN rakes.

The daily loading dropped to around 140 wagons (in terms of four-wheelers), registering a drop of 100 wagons a day, equivalent of more than 2,200 tonnes.

Supply shortage

The shortfall in supply created pockets of shortages within the North-East as also outside. Places such as New Jalpaiguri in West Bengal and Tatanagar in Jharkhand, dependent on supplies of petroleum products from the Numaligarh refinery, went dry.

However, other state-owned oil companies were asked to rush supplies to meet the shortages.

The barge loading of Numaligarh products, about 1,000 tonnes a month, at Silghat on the Brhamaputra River too did not take place for about 10 days from March 10, it is learnt.

However, the temporary suspension of barge loading was more due to the non-availability of clearance from the explosives authorities than the non-availability of products, according to sources.

Production to resume

The repair work of the plant having been completed, the production is getting stabilised and limping back to normalcy. The normal railway loading of rakes will shortly resume, it is learnt.

Fall in Rlys loading

However, the disruption in normal production in Numaligarh refinery had its toll on the monthly average of the Railways' loading of petroleum products in the eastern region. The average daily loading in the region in the current month dropped to 1,066 wagons (four-wheelers) against the targeted 1,167.

Between April last year and February this year, the average daily loading of wagons for petroleum products was 1,271 as compared to 1,195.8 in the whole of 2005-06.

During 11 months of the current fiscal, the Paradip port posted maximum growth of 86 per cent in loading, followed by 24.5 per cent in Rajbandh and 11.7 per cent in Barauni.

More Stories on : Accidents | Petroleum | Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page