India Opens New Oil Berth

India’s Union Minister for Shipping, GK Vasan, has laid the foundation stone for a 10m tonne oil berth for IndianOil Corporation Limited (IOC) at Paradip Port.

The berth is estimated to cost Rs1.72 billion and follows plans released by IOC to build a 15 million tonne oil refinery at Paradip. The refinery project is due to be operational in 2012.

The oil berth will be the second in the port – the first has a capacity of six million tonnes and is not sufficient to cater to the needs of the refinery. The berth will be required to meet the additional demands of handling crude and POL products from IOC.

Vasan also opened a ro-ro jetty for the use of the Coast Guard and IOC at Paradip Port.