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The Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas will use the balance of ₹2,398 crore saved after filling up the Visakhapatnam cavern to fill up the Mangaluru and Padur caverns of Indian Strategic Petroleum Reserve Ltd.
This information was provided to the Lok Sabha by Dharmendra Pradhan, Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Petroleum and Natural Gas, on Monday.
To ensure energy security, the government had decided to set up 5 million tonnes (mt) of strategic crude oil storages at three locations — Visakhapatnam, Mangaluru and Padur (near Udupi).
The crude oil storages are in underground rock caverns and are located on the east and west coasts so that they are readily accessible to the refining sector.
Pradhan said that the Visakhapatnam cavern, with 1.33 million tonnes, has been commissioned and filled with crude oil. “The estimated cost of filling the Visakhapatnam cavern is ₹2,550 crore,” the Minister said in a written reply.
“The government has decided that the cost of filling crude oil in Visakhapatnam will be met by the government against the 12th Plan outlay of ₹4,948 crore. The balance amount will be used for filling up the strategic part of the caverns being constructed at Mangaluru and Padur,” he said.
The caverns at Mangaluru and Padur will have a capacity of 1.5 million tonnes and 2.5 million tonnes, respectively.
Meanwhile, in reply to a separate question, Pradhan said that 13,658 km of natural gas pipeline capacity is under implementation by various organisations. Of this 312 km is expected to be commissioned by June 2016 and a further 5,640 km is expected to be added by December 2017.
LPG to rural areasTo another question on LPG supply to rural areas, Pradhan said that as on April 1 this year, there were around 6.52 crore active customers in the rural areas as compared with 10.10 crore in urban areas.
The Minister added that over the last three financial years (2013-14, 2014-15 and 2015-16) the total subsidy claimed by oil marketing companies is ₹31,921 crore for rural customers and ₹79,046 crore for urban customers.
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