India replenishes 32 million tons of oil reserves by purchasing cheap crude oil

Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said on Monday that India has managed to store 32 million tonnes of crude oil in its underground oil deposits, tanks, pipelines and ships, taking advantage of the reduced price of crude oil in the global market.

Explain that India is the third largest oil importing country in the world. India meets 85% of its imports from petroleum products to meet its needs.

In a Facebook conversation on reducing the impact of the challenges during the Covid-19 era, Pradhan said that the demand for oil all over the world suddenly disappeared as a lockdown was put in place to curb the effects of the Corona virus. This in itself is an unprecedented situation in the energy sector. Never seen such a situation before.

He said that due to this situation, the prices of crude oil in the world market kept falling and at one time there was a time when the prices in the US market went into negative range. Pradhan said that India is taking advantage of this situation to replenish its oil reserves so that it can be used later.

He said that the purchase of crude oil from Saudi Arabia, UAE and Iraq has helped to fill 53.30 lakh underground strategic reserves, while 7 million tonnes of oil is kept in floating vessels. Similarly, 250 million tonnes of oil has been loaded into the country's geographical location depots and tanks, refinery pipelines and product tanks.

He said that this oil stored is equivalent to 20 percent of the total demand of the country. India imports 85 per cent of its total oil requirement. Its oil refineries hold 65 days of crude oil reserves.

He said the fall in oil prices would reduce India's import bill, while the impact of the reduction in consumption due to Corona virus lockdown can be seen in the revenue of the central and state government.

As an emergency storage, 53 lakh tonnes of oil has been kept by the government in state-owned oil companies. This allows India to meet its oil needs for 9.5 days. These companies formed by the government are located in the underground caves of Mangaluru and Padur in Karnataka and Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh. In addition, pipelines also have some storage capacity.

Earlier, when oil prices fell by $ 20 a barrel, the oil storage tanks of Mangaluru and Padur were half empty. But now they have been filled by purchasing oil from Saudi Arabia, UAE and Iraq.

In a tweet, Strategic Petroleum Reserve Limited (ISPRL), the entity that manages the Strategic Petroleum Reserves (SPR) in the country, said that due to the initiative of the Government of India, we have successfully filled Padur SPR at a very low cost of crude oil as per schedule.