The government has set up a task force to assess the situation at Kandla port in the western region of Gujarat which suffered heavy damage due to a tropical cyclone on Tuesday. Supply of petroleum products and crude to northern states will be affected.
Headed by Devidayal, additional secretary, ministry of petroleum and natural gas, the committee will meet today to assess the disruption in the supply of crude and petroleum products. ``The team will also review the stock position of all those areas which are fed by imports from the Kandla port'', say sources.
India imports large parcels of kerosene, liquified petroleum gas (LPG), diesel and naphtha as well as fertiliser, rock phosphate, sulphur, ammonia, iron scrap in the form of scrap ships, phosphoric acid and coal at Kandla.
Oil industry sources also say ``the evacuation of products from the Koyali, Mathura and Panipat refinery will also be affected.''
The cyclone has severly damaged import handling facilities thereby disturbing supply through the kandla-bhatinda product pipeline.
A top level team from Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL) have already reached Kandla to get first hand information and suggest action plan for insuring continuous supply of petroleum products. The task force will work on the alternate plans mobilising and diverting shipments to Mangalore port thereby ensuring supplies of petroleum products in the country. Sources say ``the Barauni and Haldia refineries will also have to increase their product output to meet the demands in the Northern states''.
The members of the task force include director marketing from all the oil PSUs, director pipelines IOC, secretary ministry of surface transport (MOST), secretary, ministry of railways and executive director, Oil Co-ordination Committee (OCC).
Top officials in the oil industry indicated that the ``the MoP & NG has urged Mangalore port authorities to spruce up import facilities.
POL shipments are expected to unload at Mangalore so as to ensure supplies of products in the country.
A regional level task force under the guidance of Oil Co-ordination Committee has also been set up in Mumbai.
This team with representatives from the oil PSUs will give back up information to the national taskforce as well as help divert import parcels to other ports.
It will also provide information from Gujarat on hourly basis to the team in Delhi.
Oil industry sources say that Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd has suspended operations at its virtual jetty at Kandla.
``We were handling diesel consignment.
The pipeline designed to cut off supplies in case of some accident has worked.
The diesel ship has not been dislodged from its anchored position and there is no spillage,'' say senior sources in HPCL.
Besides Kandla port, construction work at the sites of Essar and Reliance Petroleum Ltd (RPL) at Jamnagar has also been disrupted.
According to a spokesperson of Reliance Industries, the project work was suspended for one day on June 9.
"The cyclone which passed through Jamnagar had some effect on the construction site of Reliance Petroleum Ltd (RPL).
The effect was largely to temporary construction of infrastructure facilities. The project is fully insured and there will be no monetary loss for Reliance Petroleum Ltd .
The restoration work has already started.''
Both Reliance and Essar have rushed their teams to the site to get first-hand information of the damage.
Reliance and Essar are building two huge refineries in Jamnagar, and both have large complexes in Hazira also on the coast, south of Jamnagar.
However, sources in both companies said Hazira has not been affected.
