Secretary, Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas visits the proposed Strategic Petroleum reserve site at Chandikhol,

Secretary, Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas visits the proposed Strategic Petroleum reserve site at Chandikhol, Odisha

Towards the energy security mandate of the country, Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas, Govt. of India is creating Strategic Petroleum Reserves. Under Phase I storage program, three facilities have been created at Vishakhapatnam, Mangalore and Padur, with a total storage capacity of 5.33 MMT. The storage facilities entails storage of crude oil in underground rock caverns,

Under Phase II storage program, plans currently are afoot to create Strategic Petroleum Reserves at two locations, namely Chandikhol in Odisha and Bikaner in Rajasthan which entails storage of crude oil in underground rock caverns and underground salt caverns respectively.Government of India is considering the proposal for establishment of Phase II storage program for a total storage capacity of 10.0 MMT which includes 4.4 MMT storage capacity at Chandikhol and 5.6 MMT storage capacity at Bikaner.

In this connection, Secretary, MoP&NG, Shri K.D.Tripathi, senior officials of Indian Strategic Petroleum Reserves Ltd & Engineers India Limited visited the proposed site near Chandikhol along with the revenue officials of the State Govt. of Odisha on 2nd September 2016. As per the studies undertaken for the conceived project, the underground storage facilities at Chandikhol will be created within the available Government owned land parcel and would involve a significant development in the region with the greater objective of Odisha becoming the Energy Gateway of the Eastern and North Eastern Region of India. The estimated capital cost for Chandikhol project is approx. Rs 5000 crores.

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YB
(Release ID :149511)