Indian state-controlled refiner Bharat Petroleum (BPCL) will commission three LPG bottling plants during the second half of this calendar year despite continued economic turmoil caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, the company said.
India's LPG demand declined to 2.28mn t in August, down by 4pc from 2.38mn t a year earlier but up slightly from 2.27mn t in July, according to preliminary data from state-controlled refiner IOC.
Demand for LPG has fallen slightly because people had stocked up on the fuel during the initial phase of the country's ongoing six-month lockdown, but its use is at normal levels now, said R Ramachandran, BPCL's director of refineries. He had expected LPG to be the only major fuel to record demand growth in the April 2020-March 2021 fiscal year amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Demand has risen during the outbreak in India, as the government offers three free cylinder refills and movement restrictions boost the use of LPG as a cooking fuel. The country's Covid-19 case count is rising at record rates and nearing 3.8mn, making India the world's third most-infected nation after the US and Brazil. India's lockdown has been extended until the end of September.
The 930mn rupee ($13mn) Bokaro LPG bottling plant in the eastern Indian state of Jharkhand, which has a capacity to bottle 4.23mn 14.2kg cylinders, will start operations in December, the company said. It has a single Kosan carousel of 24 filling stations, with a capacity of 60,000 t/yr, and will supply to customers in Jharkhand. The plant — which will receive the fuel from the eastern port of Haldia, where IOC also runs a 150,000 b/d refinery — has three bullet storage tanks with a capacity of 300t each.
BPCL is also commissioning a 45,000 t/yr LPG bottling plant in Madurai in the southern state of Tamil Nadu this month. It commissioned another bottling plant at Balangir in east India's Odisha state in July.
BPCL will have 55 LPG bottling plants by the end of this year, the company said. The company has 4.56mn t/yr of LPG bottling capacity, which accounts for 22pc of India's total capacity. India has 195 bottling plants, including 51 in the south of the country.
