Mangaluru: A state-of-the-art underground rock cavern has received it’s first crude delivery from the MRPL on Wednesday, October 12. The ISPRL (Indian Strategic Petroleum Reserve Limited) has the 1.5 million ton capacity underground petroleum reserve in Permude which can aid the country in times of crisis.
The VLCC (Very Large Crude Carriers) which MRPL will be delivering in ISPRL’s Permude reserve had started off from Iran and reached Mangaluru on Tuesday, 11 October. This VLCC will fill up one-thirds of the cavern compartment with 0.27 million tones of crude.
Mangaluru city is one among three reserves established by ISRPL. Sources say that the cavern’s optimum capacity will be reached in November after two VLCC from Bharath Petroleum Corporation Limited will deliver the consignment of crude.
The cavern in Mangaluru was built at a cost of Rs. 1227 crore while the one in Padur (Udupi) is a 2.5 million tonne facility built at an expense of Rs. 1693 crore. Both the facilities has pipeline laid at the cost of Rs. 223 crore. The third facility is at Vishakapatnam which was commissioned in 2015 with a total of 1.03 million tonnes filled up.
Three of ISPRL’s strategic reserves have a total capacity of 5.3 million tonnes put together. The reserves are expected to last a little more than four days for the whole of India if used sparingly, keeping in mind that the average crude import is 0.4 million tonne per day. The two local reserves contain crude worth Rs. 20,000 crore.
Korea based construction company, SK Group got the Permude and Padur projects in 2009. The dimensions of the caverns are incredibly huge with 30 meters height, 20 meters width and 6.6 kilometers in length. It is said that over 4 million cubic meters of rock has been excavated for the Permude project alone.
