BPCL, JNPT sign pact

Mumbai, August 18: The Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust JNPT and Bharat Petroleum Corporation BPCL today signed a licence agreement for development of a liquid cargo jetty at JNPT. The agreement was signed today by Kishore G Apte, dy chairman, JNPT and S Behuria, director marketing, BPCL in the presence of JNPT chairman, M P Pinto, chairman and managing director of BPCL, U Sundararajan.

The estimated cost of the jetty project including dredging as well as laying of dock lines is approximately Rs 200 crore. The jetty construction will be completed in about two years time. The agreement envisages development of a liquid cargo jetty to be developed by BPCL and IOC 8211; with BPC as the lead company 8211; on a build, operate and transfer BOT concept. This is the first time in the oil industry, a revenue sharing arrangement8217; has been mutually worked out with a port trust for providing a captive facility.

The location of the jetty has been so selected that there is a provision to berth tankers on both the sides. The jetty has been designed to accommodate vessels of 85,000 DWT though initially the vessels being berthed would be 50,000 DWT on the sea side and 30,000 DWT on the shore side.

Loading and unloading of the petroleum products will be carried out through Marine Unloading Arms and it would take no more than 24 hours to unload a product tanker. Besides being used as a liquid cargo berth the jetty can also be used as a container/ general cargo berth at a later date.

BPC is also developing an associated storage and distribution terminal at JNPT and laying a submarine pipeline to integrate this terminal with their Mahul-Sewree-Wadala complex facilities at a cost of approximately Rs 120 crore.