Centre'S Policy On Oil Infrastructure Draws Flak

In recent tenders, traders and private firms with no petroleum business have won contracts to build oil terminals, refinery officials said yesterday.

We should have the first right to the land, said an official of a state-run refining firm who did not want to be identified.

Authorities at Goa on the west coast recently awarded a contract to polyester maker Reliance Industries, outbidding state-run refiners.

Earlier this year, state-run Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd's (HPCL) bid for a ballast oil tank at Kandla, on the western Gujarat coast, was rejected in favour of a private party which has now hired out the facility to Hindustan Petroleum, oil industry officials said.

 

The Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust, which runs India's most modern port near Mumbai is seeking permission to build an oil terminal on 50 acres adjacent to the port.

State-run oil firms fear the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust would slip out of their hands to private firms who would later hire out the plant to them.

We are willing to build it on a build-operate-transfer basis and will allow private parties to lay lines, said an official of a state-run refining firm.

The federal ministry of petroleum has written to the ministry of surface transport which runs ports, backing the refiners' plea to build port infrastructure.

We have built pipelines to the remotest corners of India at great cost as it was part of our social obligation, said an executive of an oil firm.

India's three government-run refining companies