Many petrol pumps run by state-owned Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) in north India have been drying up, as fuel supplies have been disrupted due to pilferage from a product pipeline between Mumbai and Delhi.
As a result, many BPCL pumps in states like Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Punjab have been facing a shortage of petrol and diesel, said Ashok Badhwar, president of the Delhi-based Federation of All India Petroleum Traders, which is also a BPCL dealer.
A senior BPCL official admitted that a few markets in the north have been drying up. “Although supplies are available, there have been some logistic issues recently that have impacted movement of products to these markets,” he said.
The pipeline system that moves products from Mumbai to Delhi via Manmad and Indore had to be shut for repairs as there were attempts by miscreants to siphon off products in Rajasthan on three separate occasions in April and May, the official said.
BPCL says the pipeline has now been repaired after the miscreants were caught with the state’s assistance. “Alternative arrangements were also made on an emergency basis for transportation through railway rakes which is taking some time,” the official added.
The situation doesn’t seem to have improved much. “We are facing acute shortage of diesel and petrol. After facing drought for three days, we got supply on Thursday but much below the quantity ordered,” a BPCL dealer said in Amritsar today.
J P Khanna, president of the Punjab Petroleum Dealers Association, estimates that 60 per cent of the 400-odd BPCL pumps in the state faced shortages in the last 4-5 days.
For BPCL, the problem has been compounded as the pipeline tappings coincided with the planned shutdowns of its refineries in Mumbai (in March) and Kochi (in April). The Mumbai refinery, which also feeds north India, had taken a 30-day planned shutdown in the first week of March, and the company imported products to ensure supplies.
The state-run oil retailer says the Mumbai-Delhi pipeline has now been fully restored and supplies are being augmented through alternative modes to make up for the shortfall in view of the shutdown of the pipeline system for seven days in March and April and normalcy in supplies to North India will be restored within a week.
(Additional reporting by Vijay C Roy in Chandigarh)
