IndianOil resumes work on select projects, gears to ramp up operations post lockdown

The company said it is also monitoring the situation on a continuous basis to ensure that the supply lines of essential petroleum products are maintained across the country, with all necessary safety protocols in place for its field force.

While global cues and the changing market scenario will guide its future strategy, the company has already built up stocks of finished products, including petrochemicals, at its upcountry locations for future-readiness once the countrywide lockdown is lifted and the demand picks up again with resumption of economic activity, the release said.

All critical locations of the company continued operating during the lockdown period, the release said, such as 420 of its 423 supply & distribution locations, including bulk storage terminals & depots, LPG bottling plants, aviation fuel stations, lube blending plants, etc., were functioning with optimised manpower under the advisories of their respective state governments and local administrations.

The company said that its workforce in non-critical administrative locations, who were rendering backend support working-from-home, have also begun attending office on a strict rota basis from April 20, with stringent social distancing protocols and detailed health & hygiene advisories in place.

The Corporation’s LPG sale during April 1-20, 2020 was 696.6 thousand metric tonnes (TMT), up by over 19.6 per cent compared to the same period last year.

IndianOil said it has taken up resumption of work on 64 select projects with a combined allocation of about Rs. 21,375 crore, of which work has commenced on 29 projects on April 20, 2020. 

Major projects on which work has resumed include the Rs. 3,338-crore Paradip-Hyderabad products pipeline, which traverses 1,212-km through Odisha, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana; the Rs. 3,028 crore augmentation of Paradip-Haldia-Durgapur LPG pipeline and its extension to Patna and Muzaffarpur, which traverses 678-km through Odisha, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Bihar; the Rs. 6,025 crore Ennore-Tiruvallur-Bangalore-Pondicherry-Nagapattinam-Madurai-Tuticorin R-LNG pipeline, which traverses 1,170-km through Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Puducherry and Karnataka.

Work has also restarted on other projects like grassroots LPG bottling plants, bulk storage terminals/depots, city gas distribution projects and additional facilities/tankage at existing locations.

The Corporation said its capex plan for 2020-21 majorly includes projects in refineries, pipelines and marketing segments, followed by petrochemicals.

Among these, there are 188 major projects above Rs. 25 crore, which include some pipeline projects that were underway even during the lockdown period.

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