Dharmendra Pradhan Says India’s Crude Oil Storage Can Last 74 Days; Government To Launch Second Phase Of Strategic Petroleum Reserve Soon
With India successfully implementing phase one of the strategic petroleum reserve (SPR) policy it now has crude oil storage that can last for 74 days, while it plans to launch the second phase of SPR, Union Minister for Petroleum, Natural Gas, Oil and Steel said today.
“We have successfully implemented SPR phase one and all our caverns have been filled up. We will take forward this experience and launch phase two of SPR,” Pradhan said, responding to questions in the webinar series on ‘The Road To Atmanirbhar Bharat’ organised by Swarajya in association with Vedanta Resources Limited.
Currently, India has 5.33 million tonnes of crude oil stored and in the second phase it will add a storage space of 6.5 million tonnes, the minister said, adding that the second phase will be a “more commercial and business-friendly model”
He was responding to a question on India’s storage situation as compared with the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development target of 90 days storage as part of energy security.
India had taken advantage of the slump in crude oil prices to fill its caverns and the drop in prices was a reminder that producing nations had to meet the “expectations and aspirations” of the buyers, he said.
Stating that the crude oil market will be driven by Indian growth, Pradhan said the Indian government is clear that it needs crude oil at a reasonable price.
