ONI Bureau: The Odisha Government on Wednesday assured the Centre to extend all support for setting up of proposed underground Oil Reserve at Chandikhol in Jajpur district.
The assurance was made at a meeting that attended by a team from Union Oil Ministry with Chief Secretary Aditya Prasad Padhi at the State Secretariat in Bhubaneswar.
Sunjay Sudhir, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas informed that the project requires around 400 acres of land and will be completed within 60 months. And the State Govt has assured to provide all support to set up India’s largest Strategic Fuel Reserve in Odisha.
The Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in June approved establishment of additional 6.5 Million Metric Tonne (MMT) Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) facilities at two locations, i.e. Chandikhol in Odisha and Padur in Karnataka.
The SPR facilities at Chandikhol and Padur will be underground rock caverns and will have capacities of 4 MMT and 2.5 MMT respectively. Government had announced setting up of two additional SPRs during the budget announcement for 2017-18.