The Union government is to commission one of its three proposed strategic oil storage facilities in Visakhapatnam next January. This is going to be the country's first such crude oil storage facility. The other two crude oil storage centres are being built at Mangalore and Padur in Karnataka.
The three oil storage centres can store about 5.33 million tonne of oil, enough to meet nation’s oil requirement for 13 days.
However, the government is still not clear as who will operate the facility that has been built as insurance against supply disruptions. India, which is 79 per cent dependent on imports to meet its crude oil needs, is building the underground storages.