India to build world's longest LPG pipeline by June to cut costs, mishaps

India’s state-run refiners will fully commission the world’s longest liquefied petroleum gas pipeline by June, a key development that will sharply cut fuel transportation costs and help prevent deadly road accidents.  

 

“This will be a game changer in the LPG supply chain,” N. Senthil Kumar, director of pipelines at Indian Oil Corp., said in an interview. “It’s like putting LPG on a conveyor belt.”

 

The $1.3 billion project will likely replace hundreds of trucks that travel across the length and breadth of the country to move the fuel from refineries to bottling plants, raising the risk of accidents. A tanker overturned in Coimbatore last month, bringing the southern city to a partial halt. In December, 20 people were killed, 45 injured and three dozen vehicles damaged after a truck hit Indian Oil’s vehicle in the northwestern city of Jaipur. 

 

Indian Oil, Bharat Petroleum Corp. and Hindustan Petroleum Corp. have jointly formed IHB to lay the 2,800-kilometer-long pipeline from Kandla on the west coast to the northern city of Gorakhpur. The first phase will be commissioned in March, and will be fully operational from the middle of this year, said Kumar, who is also the chairman of the joint venture.

 

The network will be capable of annually transporting about 8.3 million tons of LPG, or about 25% of India’s total demand. It’s likely to significantly reduce transportation costs in the world’s third-largest consumer as about 70% of bottling plants still get it by trucks. The country’s Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board has been pushing refiners to build more pipelines to tackle increased volumes and avoid any major road disasters. 

 

Local use of the fuel, mainly needed for home cooking, has surged four-fifths over the past decade to 29.6 million tons in the fiscal year ended in March 2024, outpacing a 47% expansion in demand for refined oil products. The spurt in sales has been helped by discounts by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government to wean off low-income households from burning polluting biomass for cooking.

 

The project has been marred by several delays since it was unveiled in 2019, including pandemic-related lockdowns and challenges in sourcing materials for the project due to Russia’s war in Ukraine. India currently has an LPG pipeline network of almost 5,000 kilometers.