Due to the government's ceiling on number of LPG cylinders a year for a household, Hindustan Petroleum Corporation's (HPCL) plan to set up a second underground storage facility for liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) in Mangalore has hit a roadblock.    

HPCL, the government-owned oil marketing company, had in January stated that it planned to invest Rs 700 crore for setting up another 60,000-tonne LPG underground storage facility, also called an LPG cavern, at Mangalore with French partner Total SA.    

A senior HPCL official said that when the company conceived the idea setting up of underground storage facility, it thought with the growing demand for LPG in the country, a new cavern made commercial sense. But after a cap on the number of cylinders, demand for LPG cylinders in the country has come down. In this case, HPCL need to re-asses the need for setting up another cavern, the official said.    

According to data from the petroleum planning and analysis cell, demand for LPG has in the past year come off. While demand for LPG in June 2012 was 1,295 thousand tonne, for June 2013, it came down six per cent to 1,217 thousand tonne.