India will hold right over 65 per cent of 6 million barrels of crude oil stored by the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) at a maiden strategic storage at Mangalore. The company will send three large ships carrying crude oil beginning April, to fill half of 1.5 million tonnes strategic oil reserves that India has built at Mangalore.
A senior government official said 35 per cent of the stored crude can be used by the ADNOC for commercial purposes like trading or selling to refiners whenever it wants. The remaining 65 per cent would be for strategic purpose of meeting India's oil need during a contingency like supply disruption. “ADNOC will of course be paid for the oil if India were to draw from the reserves,” the official said. Special purpose vehicle created by the government, the Indian Strategic Petroleum Reserves Ltd has built around 39 million barrels of strategic crude oil storage at three locations- Padur and Mangalore on the western coast and Vishakhapatnam on the eastern coast.
While the Vishakhapatnam storage of ISPRL has a capacity of 1.33 million tonnes of crude oil, Padur can stock 2.5 million tonnes. Oil in Mangalore is stored in two compartments with a total storage capacity of 1.5 million tonnes. While one compartment has been filled with crude oil through funds made available by the government, the other compartment will be filled by crude supplied by ADNOC, the official said.
Earlier this year, the ADNOC signed an agreement to store crude oil at the Mangalore underground caverns during the visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Abu Dhabi. The Vishakhapatnam facility can meet two-and-half days oil need of the country, while Mangalore can meet 2.8 days requirement. Padur can meet 4.7 days requirement, the official said.
