Kerala - Kochi   

Trial run of SPM facility soon

KOCHI: The Single Point Mooring (SPM) facility set up for Bharat Petroleum Corporation-Kochi Refinery is expecting its first very large crude carrier (VLCC) to arrive within a week for the first of its trial runs.

A puja for the SPM facility was held on Wednesday.

The Single Point Mooring facility, costing approximately Rs.750 crore, is 19.2 km off the Puthuvype coast where large carriers will anchor for crude to be pumped into the onshore tanks using a sub-marine pipeline.

The onshore storage facility is of 2,55,000 kilo litres spread over three tanks. The crude will then be pumped to the Refinery through a 10-km onshore pipeline.

The SPM facility will considerably cut cost of crude transport for Kochi Refinery that receives regular import consignments and supplies from Bombay High. It is estimated that the project would save the Refinery up to Rs. 165 crore a year in transport costs.

The commissioning of the SPM facility is linked to the capacity expansion of Kochi Refinery from the current 7.5 million tonnes a year to 9.5 million tonnes.

The BPCL Board had earlier approved phase II of capacity expansion involving an investment of around Rs. 2,000 crore.

Upgrading auto fuels MS and HSD from BS II specification to Euro III standards are also part of the programme, scheduled to be completed in September 2009.

Kochi Refinery has till now been using the Crude Oil Terminal of the Cochin Port Trust for receiving vessels carrying up to 70,000 tonnes. Draft limitations at the inner channels had prevented larger vessels from coming to the oil terminal.

While the channel for the oil terminal had a draft of 12.5 metres, the VLCC carriers will have draft up to 22.4 metres.

The BPCL had also taken up social development activities in the Elamkunnappuzha panchayat area ahead of building the SPM facility.

A total of Rs. 18 crore had been earmarked for the purpose. Of this, Rs. 12 crore was used for development activities within the panchayat area while the remaining amount had gone into projects within Cochin Corporation, including the completion of the Sahodaran Ayyappan Road.

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