LPG cavern project stone-laying today

Ram Naik, the union minister of petroleum and natural gas, will lay the foundation stone for India's first LPG cavern underground storage project here on February 19.

The project is likely to become operational by the mid of 2006. The state-owned Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL) and France-based Totalfina have jointly taken up this project with an investment of about Rs 300 crore. HPCL and Totalfina jointly formed a special purpose vehicle, South Asia LPG (SALPG), to run this project.

The cavern project will have a storage capacity of 60,000 tonne LPG. It can handle about 12 lakh tonne LPG a year. To evacuate LPG from this underground project, Gas Authority of India Limited (Gail) has already laid the LPG pipeline from Visakhapatnam to Secunderabad.

Visakhapatnam Port Trust (VPT) has allotted about 16 acres of land on lease at the port area where the underground storage project is to be located.

The site is close to the present LPG berth at the port outer harbour. Construction contract for this project has been awarded to Larson & Toubro Company through a competitive bidding process.