Pradhan discusses oil&gas in the Emirates

Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Dharmendra Pradhan has invited companies in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to be preferred partners in the entire hydrocarbon value chain of India.

The invitation was extended after Pradhan held bilateral meeting with Dr. Sultan Al Jaber, UAE Minister of State and Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) Group CEO.

They had detailed discussions on the Indian downstream sector and explored the various opportunities for participation of UAE companies in the mega petroleum sector infrastructure projects in India.

Both sides also discussed on the ongoing cooperation in the hydrocarbon sector and explored ways to further enhance the engagement.

Pradhan and Dr. Sultan Al Jaber also witnessed the loading of first consignment of two million barrels of ADNOC crude for Mangalore Cavern on 12 May 2018.

Pradhan is visiting UAE to follow up on the February 2018 agreement with ADNOC for Indian Strategic Petroleum Reserves Ltd (ISPRL) under which ADNOC will store about 5.86 million barrels of crude oil in India’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) facility at Mangalore at its own cost.

ISPRL has built 5.33 million tonnes (around 39 million barrels) of strategic crude oil storage facilities at Vishakhapatnam, Mangalore and Padur.

Vishakhapatnam storage has a capacity of 1.33 million tonnes (9.77 million barrels) of crude oil, Mangalore has a capacity of 1.5 million tonnes (11 million barrels) and Padur can stock 2.5 million tonnes (18.37 million barrels).

Government of India can use the entire available crude oil stored by ADNOC in the Mangalore SPR facility during an emergency situation.

The Agreement with ISPRL also allows ADNOC to sell part of the crude oil to Indian refineries on commercial basis while adhering to mutually agreed minimum crude storage which is for exclusive use of the Indian government. fii-news.com