Mumbai: BPCL plans to move LPG facility out of city limits

With a major blast engulfing Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL) refinery in Mahul last month, the public sector major has decided to shift its LPG storing facility out of Mumbai. The development is also expected to reduce around 43% truck-lorry movements in the area, thereby de-risking and de-congesting the locality and people around from a similar situation in the future. BPCL is scouting for a place near Rasayani, which is about 55 kilometres off the eastern waterfront in the outskirts of Mumbai.

D Rajkumar, CMD of BPCL, during a post-AGM interaction with media, said that the ‘unfortunate’ accident in Mumbai was amongst the rarest of rare as it happened due to material dysfunction. He added that the company is planning to shift some of the facilities including the LPG storage tanks to an alternative location and the work for which is likely to get completed in around two years.

The explosion at the hydrocracker plant in the Mahul refinery on August 8 led to a major fire, in which at least 40 people were injured.

The accident had led to loss of around Rs 97 crore to the company. R Ramachandran, BPCL director (refineries), said that the facility at Rasayani is expected to attract an investment of around Rs 38,000 crore over next few years as the company will also be setting up a petchem (petrol chemical) plant there. He added that though plans for other development are still at nascent stage, but the LPG shifting movement is being done on priority basis.