The government is planning to establish two petroleum commercial-cum-strategic facilities of 6.5 MMT storage capacity to be established under Phase-2 of SPR Programme, says Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas Rameswar Teli in a written reply in the Lok Sabha. 

Under Phase II of the petroleum reserve programme, Government has given approval in July 2021 for establishing two additional commercial-cum-strategic facilities with total storage capacity of 6.5 MMT underground storages at Chandikhol (4 MMT) and Padur (2.5 MMT) on PPP mode.

The Request for Proposal for building these storage facilities is under finalization. An amount of Rs. 210 crore was allocated in the budget of FY 2020-21 under Phase II for land acquisition, and the same has been disbursed to ISPRL.

Under Phase I of strategic petroleum reserves (SPR) programme, Government of India, through its Special Purpose Vehicle, Indian Strategic Petroleum Reserve Limited (ISPRL), has established petroleum storage facilities with total capacity of 5.33 Million Metric Tonnes (MMT) at 3 locations, namely Visakhapatnam (1.33 MMT), Mangaluru (1.5 MMT), and Padur (2.5 MMT), and all the storage facilities have been filled with crude oil.

The petroleum reserves established under Phase I are strategic in nature and the crude oil stored in these reserves will be used during an oil shortage event, as and when declared so by the Government of India.