Strategic oil reserves

News:India may look into its strategic oil reserves after the drone strikes on Saudi Arabian Oil facility has affected the global oil markets.

Facts:

What are Strategic oil reserves?

• Strategic oil reserves are stockpiles of crude oil maintained by countries or private industries.They are meant to tackle emergency situations to counter short-term supply disruptions.
• They represent a defense against any event of downfall in future oil production including physical or economic actions.
• Globally,major oil consumers such as the US, China and Japan have already built massive strategic reserves of oil over the years with India following up.

Strategic Petroleum Reserves In India:

• The construction and maintenance of strategic petroleum reserves (SPR) India is given to the Indian Strategic Petroleum Reserves Ltd (ISPRL).
• Under Phase I,India has built Strategic oil reserves at Mangalore (Karnataka), Visakhapatnam (Andhra Pradesh) and Padur (Karnataka).
• These reserves can store 5.33 MT(million tonnes) of emergency storage to meet India’s oil needs for 9.5 days.
• In Phase-II,India plans to build an additional 6.5 million tonne facilities at Chandikhol(Odisha) and Padur(Karnataka) which is expected to add the emergency cover against any oil supply disruption by another 11.5 days.

Additional information:

About ISPRL:

• Indian Strategic Petroleum Reserves Limited (ISPRL) is a Special Purpose Vehicle.It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Oil Industry Development Board(OIDB) under the Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas.