Indian Strategic Petroleum Reserves Limited (ISPRL) is an Indian public sector company responsible for maintaining the country's strategic petroleum reserves. ISPRL is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Oil Industry Development Board (OIDB), which functions under the administrative control of the

Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas The Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas (MOP&NG) is a List of Indian agencies, ministry of the Government of India responsible for the exploration, production, refining, distribution, marketing, import, export, and conservation of petroleum, ...

. ISPRL maintains an emergency fuel store of total 5.33 MMT (million metric tons) or of strategic

crude oil Petroleum, also known as crude oil or simply oil, is a naturally occurring, yellowish-black liquid chemical mixture found in geological formations, consisting mainly of hydrocarbons. The term ''petroleum'' refers both to naturally occurring u ...

enough to provide 9.5 days of consumption. Strategic crude oil storages are at three underground locations in

Mangaluru Mangaluru (), formerly called Mangalore ( ), is a major industrial port city in the Indian state of Karnataka and on the west coast of India. It is located between the Laccadive Sea and the Western Ghats about west of Bengaluru, the stat ...

Visakhapatnam Visakhapatnam (; List of renamed places in India, formerly known as Vizagapatam, and also referred to as Vizag, Visakha, and Waltair) is the largest and most populous metropolitan city in the States and union territories of India, Indian stat ...

and

Padur Padur (or Padoor) ( Malayam: പാടൂര്) is a village in Palakkad district, Kerala, India. The village is prominently known for its temple of Sree Panickanar, where a yearly festival called Padur Vela is celebrated and is well attende ...

(Udupi, Karnataka). All these are located on the east and west coasts of

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

which are readily accessible to the

refineries A refinery is a production facility composed of a group of chemical engineering unit processes and unit operations refining certain materials or converting raw material into products of value. Types of refineries Different types of refineries a ...

. These strategic storages are in addition to the existing storages of crude oil and petroleum products with the oil companies and serve in response to external supply disruptions. Indian refiners maintain 64.5 days of crude storage, so India has overall reserve oil storage of 74 days.

History

The

Gulf War , combatant2 = , commander1 = , commander2 = , strength1 = Over 950,000 soldiers3,113 tanks1,800 aircraft2,200 artillery systems , page = https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GAOREPORTS-PEMD-96- ...

in 1990 caused a sharp rise in oil prices and a massive increase to India's imports. During the subsequent

1991 Indian economic crisis The 1991 Indian economic crisis was an economic crisis in India resulting from a balance of payments deficit due to excess reliance on imports and other external factors. India's economic problems started worsening in 1985 as imports swelled, le ...

foreign exchange reserves Foreign exchange reserves (also called forex reserves or FX reserves) are cash and other reserve assets such as gold and silver held by a central bank or other monetary authority that are primarily available to balance payments of the country, ...

could barely finance three weeks' worth of imports while the government came close to defaulting on its financial obligations. India was able to resolve the crisis through policies that liberalised the economy. However, India continued to be impacted by the volatility of oil prices. In 1998, the Atal Bihari Vajpayee administration proposed building petroleum reserves as a long-term solution to managing the oil market. Three storage facilities were built in underground locations in

and

. A total of 5.33 MMT (million metric tons) storage capacity was built at an investment of $600 million in the first phase. In the 2017-18 budget speech by the Indian finance minister

Arun Jaitley Arun Jaitley (28 December 1952 – 24 August 2019) was an Indian politician and attorney. A member of the Bharatiya Janata Party, Jaitley served as the Minister of Finance and Corporate Affairs of the Government of India from 2014 to 2019. Jait ...

, it was announced that two more such caverns will be set up

Chandikhole Chandikhol is a town and a Notified Area Council in Jajpur district, Odisha, India. The place has been named after Goddess "Chandi" worshipped by late monk Baba Bhairabananda Bramhachari who established the deity of ''Maa Chandi'' in one of th ...

, Odisha and

Bikaner Bikaner () is a city in the northwest of the States and territories of India, state of Rajasthan, India. It is located northwest of the state capital, Jaipur. It is the administrative headquarters of Bikaner District and Bikaner division. Fo ...

in Rajasthan as part of the second phase. In June 2018, the Narendra Modi administration approved the construction of a new storage facility in

and doubling the capacity at Padur. This would raise India's strategic reserve capacity to 11.83 million tonnes. Apart from this, India is planning to expand more strategic crude oil facilities in second phase at

Rajkot Rajkot () is the fourth-largest city in the Indian state of Gujarat Gujarat () is a States of India, state along the Western India, western coast of India. Its coastline of about is the longest in the country, most of which lies on the ...

in Gujarat.

Storage capacity

External links

ISPRL website

Explained: Why India Plans to Outsource Its Strategic Petroleum Reserves

References

{{Energy Ministries and Departments of India Petroleum economics Institutions of Petroleum in India Energy security Oil storage Companies based in Noida Indian companies established in 2005 Energy infrastructure in India Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas Petroleum infrastructure in India

History

Storage capacity

See also

External links

References