{"id":35728,"date":"2023-06-03T11:28:30","date_gmt":"2023-06-03T05:58:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=35728"},"modified":"2025-04-21T11:19:21","modified_gmt":"2025-04-21T05:49:21","slug":"oil-reserves-in-salt-caverns-the-potential-in-india","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/oil-reserves-in-salt-caverns-the-potential-in-india\/","title":{"rendered":"Oil Reserves in Salt Caverns: The Potential in India"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><strong>What\u2019s in today\u2019s article?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Why in News?<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>What is Salt Cavern-based Storage?<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Salt Cavern-based Storage v\/s Rock Cavern-based Storage<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Potential in India for Storing Crude, Petroleum Products<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>India\u2019s Strategic Petroleum Reserves<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Phase-2 of SPR Programme<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<h2><strong>Why in News?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Government-owned engineering consultancy firm <strong>Engineers India<\/strong> (EIL) is studying the prospects and feasibility of developing salt cavern-based strategic oil reserves in Rajasthan.<\/li>\n<li>If the idea comes to fruition, India could get its first <strong>salt cavern-based oil storage facility<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>This is in line with the government\u2019s objective of <strong>increasing the country\u2019s strategic oil storage capacity<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>What is Salt Cavern-based Storage?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Underground storage caverns are used to store very large quantities of unrefined petroleum and natural gas.<\/li>\n<li>These underground caverns are cavities that have been \u201cmined\u201d out of naturally occurring salt domes.\n<ul>\n<li>Approximately <strong>7% of total underground natural gas storage capacity is in Salt Caverns<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Salt caverns are developed by the process of <strong>solution mining<\/strong>, which involves <u>pumping water into geological formations with large salt deposits to dissolve the salt<\/u>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Salt Cavern-based Storage v\/s Rock Cavern-based Storage<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Rock caverns are <strong>large man-made spaces in the rock<\/strong> and are considered the safest means of storing hydrocarbons.<\/li>\n<li>In comparison to rock caverns, salt caverns are considered cheaper and less labour- and cost-intensive.<\/li>\n<li>Salt cavern-based oil storage facilities are also naturally well-sealed, and engineered for rapid injection and extraction of oil.<\/li>\n<li>This makes them a more attractive option than storing oil in other geological formations.<\/li>\n<li>The entire strategic petroleum reserve programme of the United States has so far been based on salt cavern-based storage facilities.\n<ul>\n<li>In comparison, <strong>India\u2019s all 3 strategic petroleum reserves are made up of excavated rock caverns<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Potential in India for Storing Crude, Petroleum Products<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Rajasthan<\/strong>, which has the bulk of requisite salt formations in India, is seen as the most conducive for developing salt cavern-based strategic storage facilities.<\/li>\n<li>A refinery is coming up in Barmer, and Rajasthan has crude pipelines as well; such infrastructure is conducive for building strategic oil reserves.<\/li>\n<li>However, <strong>no Indian company, including EIL, had the requisite technical know-how to build salt cavern-based strategic hydrocarbon storage<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>This <strong>gap in access to technology has been bridged by EIL\u2019s recent partnership with Germany\u2019s DEEP.KBB GmbH<\/strong> \u2014 a company that specialises in cavern storage and solution mining technology.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>India\u2019s Strategic Petroleum Reserves<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/vajiramandravi-test.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com\/media\/content\/ckeditor\/2023\/06\/08\/image-20230608205004-1.png\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Image Caption: India\u2019s SPR Locations<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A strategic reserve is the reserve of a <strong>commodity or items that is held back from normal use by governments, in pursuance of a particular strategy or to cope with unexpected events<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>Countries keep strategic reserves of crude oil to meet the immediate demand in times of crisis or unexpected events.<\/li>\n<li>India, the world\u2019s third-largest consumer of crude, <u>depends on imports for more than 85% of its requirement<\/u>.<\/li>\n<li>Government of India through <strong>Indian Strategic Petroleum Reserve Ltd.<\/strong> (ISPRL) under Phase\u20131 has setup Strategic Petroleum Reserves (SPR) at three locations with a capacity of <strong>5.33 MMT (million metric ton) \u2013<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Vishakhapatnam<\/strong> (1.33 MMT),<\/li>\n<li><strong>Mangaluru<\/strong> (1.50 MMT) and<\/li>\n<li><strong>Padur<\/strong> (2.5 MMT)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Taking advantage of low crude oil prices in April-May 2020, the government completely filled these reserves, leading to estimated savings of around Rs 5,000 crore.<\/li>\n<li>These three SPRs can meet <strong>approximately 9.5 days of national demand<\/strong>.\n<ul>\n<li>Apart from SPRs, India\u2019s oil marketing companies (OMCs) have storage facilities for crude oil and petroleum products for 64.5 days \u2014 which means <strong>there is sufficient storage to meet around 74 days of the country\u2019s petroleum demand<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Comparison with other Countries \u2013<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>The top three countries in terms of such reserves for crude oil are the <strong>US<\/strong>, <strong>China<\/strong> and <strong>Japan<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>Between them, they have 1500 million barrels. At an average daily global consumption of 95 million barrels a day, that\u2019s <strong>roughly 20-odd days of oil<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Phase-2 of SPR Programme<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Under <strong>Phase-2<\/strong> of the programme, government has given in-principle approval for construction of additional SPR facilities at two locations (<strong>Chandikhol<\/strong> (4 MMT) and <strong>Padur<\/strong> (2.5 MMT)).<\/li>\n<li>In the second phase of the programme, the <strong>government wants to develop strategic reserves through public-private partnerships<\/strong> so as to reduce government spending and exploit the commercial potential of the reserves.<\/li>\n<li>India has also decided to commercialize its SPRs. As part of this, <strong>Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) stored about 0.8 million tonnes of crude oil in the Mangaluru strategic reserve<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3><strong>Q1) Which country is the largest producer of petroleum?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>The USA is the largest producer of petroleum followed by Saudi Arabia, Russia and Canada.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Q2) Which state in India is the largest producer of natural gas?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Assam is the largest gas-producing state in India. About 13% of gas reserves are found in Assam.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Source:<\/strong>\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/indianexpress.com\/article\/explained\/explained-economics\/explained-economics-oil-reserves-in-salt-caverns-8643242\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><u>Oil reserves in salt caverns: The potential in India<\/u><\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Underground storage caverns are used to store large quantities of petroleum and natural gas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":35730,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-35728","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-mains-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35728","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35728"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35728\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}