LPG depots in Valley, Dhanusha planned

KATHMANDU, MAR 17 - Nepal Oil Corporation (NOC) plans to establish two liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) depots in the Kathmandu valley and Mahendranagar in Dhanusha district with a capacity of 10,000 tonnes each, officials of the state-owned company said. Last month, the Ministry of Commerce and Supply had also instructed NOC to explore the possibility of setting up storage facilities in all the five development regions. The five depots are estimated to cost between Rs200-250 million in total. NOC’s plan to build depots is a bid to address recurring gas shortages that have been plaguing the country. The corporation possesses no storage facilities and bottlers bring LPG directly from India as per its purchase delivery order. Although the private sector bottlers claim to have a storage capacity of a combined 6,500 tonnes, they have not been able to maintain regular supplies of the vital cooking fuel. NOC Spokesperson Mukunda Ghimire said the corporation had moved to construct storage facilities in line with the directive issued by Chief Secretary Leela Mani Paudyal some 10 days ago. People are suffering from a shortage of cooking gas that has dragged on for four months. LPG disappeared from the market after shipments from Indian Oil Corporation’s refinery in Barauni were cut due to regular maintenance there. Since then, gas bottlers and NOC have been blaming each other for the shortage. Ghimire said NOC had planned to set up a depot at Mahendranagar in Dhanusha where it owns 11 bighas of land. It is now being used by the Nepal Army. Ghimire said the storage facility would occupy about 10 katthas of land. “We are yet to finalise the details about the depot and the investment needed,” he added. NOC said another depot would be built in Kathmandu in the second phase. “However, we are yet to conduct a feasibility study on the location and the land acquisition process in the valley.” Earlier, a high-level parliamentary committee had recommended conducting a series of reforms at NOC which included building LPG storage facilities. The House panel had urged both NOC and the private sector to construct LPG depots. Meanwhile, NOC claimed that the gas scarcity had eased. It plans to import 29,000 tonnes of LPG in March. “Although a shortage exists to some extent, it is not as severe compared to the last few months.”