Monday, 23 February 2015

INDIAN STRATEGIC OIL RESERVES


Strategic  petroleum reserves refer to crude oil stockpiles held by particular government of a country  for economic and national security during an energy crisis .

The sharp slide in crude oil prices  on the global level has raised the spirits of  think-tanks and policy makers  in India to enhance its oil reserves .  In 2003  India started the development of a strategic crude oil reserves  sized at  37000000(approx.) barrels, enough for 14 days  in the event of  energy emergency. 

presently the strategic reserve facilities are:
  • Mangalore -10.995 million barrels
  • Udupi -18.7 million barrels
  • Visakhapatnam - 1.33 million ton.
A special purpose vehicle -Indian strategic  petroleum reserve limited under the oil industry development board was floated to implement the project.
On the other hand China, which has 170 million barrels of strategic oil reserves  has been continuously  expanding it further to 90 days reserve to match USA.

India is in talks with west asian and middle east crude oil producers like kuwait and saudi arabia to allow them to book crude oil storage facilities on the east and west coast.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi with saudi king Salman bin abdulaziz 


Recently saudi Crown prince Salman bin Abdulaziz met Indian prime minister Narendra Modi in Brisbane on the sidelines of G20 meeting to discuss investment in strategic oil storage in india. This follows a meeting two weeks a ago when Indian petroleum minister Dharmendra Pradhan, met his saudi counterpart Ali al naimi.

With the increase in crude oil demand the government is al;so realising the need for setting additional storage facilities  for 12.5 million tons of such facilities in Rajasthan, Odihsa ,Gujrat and Karnatka.

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