Crude oil: India to release 5 mn barrels from its emergency stockpile
New Delhi: Are India, and the world, heading towards some unprecedented situation?
Speculation was rife in financial circles after the media reports, quoting a “top government official” emerged on Tuesday that New Delhi will release five million barrels of crude oil from its strategic reserves, starting next week.
Officially, however, it is seen in tandem with similar steps the US, Japan, and other major economies are taking to “cool prices”.
On Tuesday, crude oil prices hovered around USD 75 per barrel. Even when they had spiked to USD 140 per barrel in the last decade, India and other countries had not released stocks from emergency stockpiles, sources said.
At present, India stores about 38 million barrels of crude oil in underground caverns at three locations on the east and west coast. Of this, they will release about 5 million barrels, starting next week, the reports said.
The released stocks will be sold to Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd (MRPL) and Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd (HPCL) which are connected by pipeline to the strategic reserves.
“We may look at releasing more reserves later,” the official added.
(VP)
