ONGC to Reserve Half of New Oil Storage for Strategic Needs
India’s Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) will allocate half of its planned 1.75 million metric tonne oil storage facility at Mangaluru for the country’s strategic petroleum reserves. The move is part of India’s broader effort to strengthen energy security and expand its emergency crude oil storage capacity through public and private participation.
The new facility will be built in Karnataka, where ONGC’s subsidiary Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Limited (MRPL) operates a major refinery. India currently has strategic petroleum reserve capacity of 5.33 million tonnes across Mangaluru, Padur, and Visakhapatnam, with part of the storage already available for commercial use under existing regulations. The country also has enough crude oil and petroleum product storage to cover 74 days of net crude import requirements.
The government is planning to add another 6.5 million tonnes of strategic storage, including a 4 million-tonne facility at Chandikhol in Odisha and a 2.5 million-tonne expansion at Padur in partnership with private companies. The Chandikhol project, for which land has already been acquired, is expected to cost around ₹90 billion.
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