Exclusive: Oil ministry seeks financing avenues for strategic petroleum reserves phase 2 projects under PPP mode, sources say

Petroleum ministry has raised issues of financing avenues for the development of strategic petroleum reserves phase II projects under public private partnership or PPP mode so that sovereign wealth funds can be invited to invest in these projects. According to sources, it will soon organise a meeting with Niti Aayog to discuss viable gap funding for these projects.

Under phase 2, the government has given its nod for the construction of an additional 6.5 mt of strategic crude oil reserves at Padur in Karnataka with the capacity of 2.5 mt and at Chandikhol (4 mt) in Odisha. Under phase 1, the petroleum ministry has already built capacity of strategic petroleum reserve of 5.3 million tonne (MT) across three locations at a cost of Rs 4,098 crore -  2.5 MT at Padur in Odisha,1.5 MT at Mangaluru in Karnataka and 1.3 MT at Vishakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh. 

Last month, India and the US also signed a pact to start cooperation on strategic petroleum reserves operation. They also discussed the possibility of India storing oil in the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve to augment the strategic oil stockpile of their nations.

Additionally, the oil ministry has also requested for revisit of permissible projects in harmonised list and for bringing natural gas under the GST ambit, the sources said. Inclusion of natural gas in the GST regime will minimize distortions in gas delivered prices and help in free cross-country trade. The issue related to GST has been flagged to the finance ministry many a times to escalate it to the GST Council so that approvals can be fast tracked, according to sources.