Inland Waterways Authority of India on Thursday signed an MoU with MOL (Asia Oceania) Pte. Ltd for transportation of LPG through barges on National Waterways-1 and National Waterways-2.

The world’s largest gas carrier company, MOL Group will invest for construction and operation of dedicated LPG barges under Make-in-India initiative, the Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways said in a statement. Aegis Group has also proposed investments to set up storage terminals, dedicated pipelines between jetty to the terminal and necessary infrastructure at jetty for evacuation of products from barges, the statement added.

The IWAI will facilitate adequate fairway and provide Lease Available Depth (LAD) information on fortnightly or monthly basis. LPG cargos will be handled on IWAI terminals or multimodal terminals at Haldia, Sahibganj and Varanasi as per notified provisions and rates on the request of MOL, it added.

Currently, 60 per cent of the LPG is moved through road to the various locations with a cost of ₹5-6 per tonne per kilometre, which the oil companies are interested in reducing. At times, strikes by transporters, road blockages also cause delay in transportation. Therefore, the main area of interest for the companies is to use waterways to have a cheaper alternative to the existing mode of transportation, the statement said.

Also, there are some areas which are difficult to approach through rail or road especially in the North-East region where IWT sector may provide usable solutions, the statement said.

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