The Hindu : Front Page : LPG cavern project, a technological marvel

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Sep 12, 2006
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Front Page

LPG cavern project, a technological marvel

Sumit Bhattacharjee

BEATING DEADLINE:Work in full swing on cavern project.

VISAKHAPATNAM: By mid 2007, LPG storage in the country is set to make a technological leap. SALPG, the promoter of India's first underground mined rock LPG cavern project at Visakhapatnam, is going all out to finish the project by June 2007. Once the project is completed, India will be among the select band of countries to have LPG storage facility housed at 162 metres below mean sea level. Located near Dolphin's Nose, this project is also the first of its kind in South and South East Asia. In the world, so far there are only 80 such facilities.

Joint venture

SALPG is a 50:50 joint venture between HPCL and TOTAL, a French oil major.

According to CEO of SALPG Neeraj Sanghi, the new design by the French consulting firm Geostock coupled with the natural settings of the location makes the project unique. The Rs. 333 crore-project has been offered to Indian construction major Larsen and Tourbo on a lump sum-turnkey basis for building both underground and overground facilities. While Rs. 100 crores is equity based, the balance is being funded by a consortium of banks led by SBI.

Highlights

The storage facility is made up of two caverns of size measuring 19 metres in height, 20 m in diameter and 160 m in length. The caverns are located 162 m below mean sea level under solid hard rock and will hold 60,000 MT of LPG. Apart from being fully safe from natural calamities and hazards like sabotage, and aerial bombings, it would be leak and fireproof.

Mr. Sanghi explained that the caverns are jacketed with natural water curtains on three sides.

Three phases

The caverns are being dug in three phases. The first 8 metres is completed for the whole length and breadth, the second 5 metres is over by 80 per cent and the work on the last 6 metres has just begun. Using precision drilling and blasting, L&T has been able to evacuate over 2,000 MT of hard rock and muck through the bucket hoist system, working three shifts on a daily basis.

Since the project is located on the beachfront, the draft permits the entry of VLGC's up to 40,000 MT. There will be two pipelines to handle butane and propane separately at the berth. Five booster pumps on the shore will add up to the onboard pumps to facilitate the discharge at the required rate of 1,000 MT per hour.

Over-ground facility

An over-ground facility is being constructed to blend the two gases online and convert it to LPG. The existing HPCL pipeline will be used to transport the LPG to the HPCL's bottling plant and the pipeline of GAIL will also be used to facilitate direct discharge in Hyderabad.

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