Page 15 - MEOG Week 15

MEOG
neWs in BrieF
MEOG
filled by buying oil from Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Iraq.
Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, who attended the office for the first time since the nationwide lockdown was imposed, reviewed the reserve filling plans.
“Min. P&NG Shri @dpradhanbjp along with officials of MoPNG reviewed the ongoing operations of India’s Strategic Petroleum Reserves Program in the light of prevailing low crude oil prices,” the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas (MoPNG) tweeted.
Pradhan has in the last few days held talks with his counterparts in Saudi Arabia and the UAE with a view to shoring up supplies.
“He instructed officials of @ISPRl1 to augment storage of crude in the strategic reserves to further enhance India’s energy security,” the ministry tweeted.
The Strategic Petroleum Reserve entity
of India (ISRPl) built the underground storages as insurance against supply and price disruptions. It allowed foreign oil companies to store oil in the storages on condition that the stockpile can be used by New Delhi in case of an emergency.
Pradhan also reviewed marketing and supply of essential petroleum products including petrol, diesel, and lPG, the ministry said. “Together with officials of MoPNG reviewed exploration and production activities of @ONGC_ through video- conferencing. ONGC is maintaining oil and gas production in spite of the challenges posed by the lockdown and the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Abu Dhabi National Oil Co (ADNOC) had previously hired half of the 1.5 million tonnes of Mangalore storage.
It has stored for its commercial purposes 0.75 million tonnes of oil at Mangalore and the remaining space was empty, sources said adding the UAE’’s Upper Zakum crude is being bought for storing in the empty space.
Padur, the biggest of the three storages, has a total capacity of 2.5 million tonnes (about 17 million barrels). ADNOC had in November 2018 signed up to hire half of this capacity but never actually stored oil in it.
Government-sourced crude fills up half of the Padur capacity currently and 1.25 million tonnes of crude oil from Saudi Arabia is planned to be sourced for filling up the empty space, they said.
Padur storage has four compartments of 0.625 million tonnes each. The 1.33 million tonnes Vishakhapatnam storage has a small amount of unfilled space which would be filled with Iraq crude oil, they added.
While the oil to be stored in the three caverns will belong to the government, the government isn’t paying for it. State-owned Indian Oil Corp (IOC), Bharat Petroleum Corp ltd (BPCl) and Hindustan Petroleum Corp ltd (HPCl) have been asked to source oil from the three Middle-East countries for storing the caverns, sources said, adding the government will reimburse them of this cost at a later date.
The Finance Ministry has set aside Rs 700 crore for the purpose, they said adding the amount wouldn’t cover for the cost of entire oil to be bought and more allocations will need to be made.
At least Rs 2,000 crore more would be needed for buying the 15 million barrels of oil needed to fill Mangalore, Padur and Vizag, they said.
ADNOC had in February 2018 signed a pact to fill half of the 1.5 million tonnes of strategic oil storage at Mangalore.
In November 2018, it had signed a similar pact with the ISRPl for Padur. In Mangalore, it had agreed to stock 5.86 million barrels or 0.75 million tonnes of oil.
The agreement allows ADNOC to sell or trade crude oil storage in the storages to local refiners but give the Indian government the first right to the oil in case of an emergency.
Allowing foreign companies to use the storage for storing crude oil helps the government save on the cost of filling the reserves.
Sources said foreign oil firms are allowed to hire the storages and use them to stock their oil and sell it to refineries in the region on commercial terms.
India, which meets 83 percent of its oil needs through imports, will have the right of
first refusal to buy the crude oil stored in the facilities in case of an emergency, they said.
Indian refiners maintain 65 days of crude storage, and when added to the storage planned and achieved by ISPRl, the Indian crude storage tally goes up to about 87 days.
This is very close to the storage of 90 days mandated by IEA for member countries.
Pti
GAs
Iranian gas pipeline to
Turkey remains offline two
weeks later
The flow of Iranian gas to Turkey that was disrupted 14 days ago due to an explosion remains disconnected, IRNA reported on April 12.
The exact cause of the explosion remains unknown, however, the location where the blast took place is a hotbed of the Kurdish opposition in Turkey. Kurdish separatist groups have targeted Turkish infrastructure in the country’s east previously near the border with Iran.
National Iranian Gas Company (NIGC) said that unlike previous incidents which were dealt with three days later, the Turkish company BOTAS which is the partner has failed to fix the pipeline.
NIGC now believes that the delays in fixing the destroyed pipeline are in part because
of Turkish efforts to fight the coronavirus (COVID-19) distracting from the situation near Gurbulak Border Crossing in the eastern province of Agri.
“Unlike previous incidents which were dealt within three days at the most, BOTAS, the importing company, has so far taken no measure to repair the ruptured pipeline over the last two weeks,” Mehdi Jamshidi Dana director of dispatching said.
The official said that the NIGC would be able to fix the Turkish breakage in “just under a week”, with the company saying it had not
Week 15 15•April•2020
w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m
P15