India signs pact for South Asia's first trans-national oil pipeline

The 41-Kilometer long pipeline, including a 2-Kilometer stretch in India, will be constructed by Indian Oil Corporation

India today signed an initial agreement with its neighbour Nepal to construct South Asia's first trans-national petroleum pipeline. The announcement comes within a year of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's promise of setting up the pipeline to boost cross-border to that nation.

India's petroleum minister Dharmendra Pradhan, who is currently visiting the Himalayan nation, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Nepal's minister of commerce and supplies Sunil Bahadur Thapa for the petroleum product pipeline between Raxaul in India and Amlekhgunj in Nepal.

The 41-Kilometer long pipeline, including a 2-Kilometer stretch in India, will be constructed by India's largest fuel retailer and marketer Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) at a cost of Rs 200 crore. "IOC will also do re-engineering of the Amlekhgunj petroleum depot to make it compatible for receiving petroleum products," the oil ministry said.

IOC will complete the project within 30 months after receiving the statutory approvals from the Nepalese government. Nepal's national oil company Nepal Oil Corporation (NOC) will invest an additional Rs 75 crore to develop additional facilities in the Amlekhgunj depot.

India exports around $11 billion worth of petroleum products annually to Nepal and a bulk of this volume will be transported through the Raxaul-Amlekhgunj pipeline. Modi, during his first official visit to Nepal in an address to the Constituent Assembly on 4 August 2014, had announced the building of the pipeline that will serve to improve regional connectivity among the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) nations. The Union cabinet had recently approved the project.