Indian Strategic Petroleum Reserve Limited (ISPRL) has set up petroleum storage facilities with a total capacity of 5.33 million metric tonnes (mmt) under Phase-I of the Strategic Petroleum Reserves (SPR) programme, Government of India, through its Special Purpose Vehicle, in three locations.

They are (i) Mangaluru (1.5 mmt), (ii) Padur (2.5 mmt), and (iii) Visakhapatnam (1.33 mmt), and crude oil has been filled in all the storage facilities.

The petroleum reserves set up under Phase I are strategic in nature. The crude oil stored in these reserves will be utilised during an oil shortage event, as and when declared by the Government of India.

The Government approved establishing two additional commercial-cum-strategic facilities with a total storage capacity of 6.5 mmt underground storages at Chandikhol (4 mmt) and Padur (2.5 mmt) on PPP mode in July 2021 under Phase II of the petroleum reserve programme.

The Request for Proposal for constructing these storage facilities is yet to be finalised. In the budget of FY 2020-21, an amount of Rs 210 crore was allocated under Phase II for land acquisition and has been disbursed to ISPRL.

According to section 9(2) of the Central Goods and Services Tax Act, the inclusion of excluded products in GST will require the approval of the GST Council. The GST Council did not give any approval so far to include petrol and diesel under GST.

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