LPG pipeline linked to cities

Indian refineries have adopted modern technologies for production of petroleum products and continuously upgrade the technologies in line with their requirements and international trends, Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said this in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha on 10 July 2019.

Apart from primary processing technologies, viz., Crude Oil Fractionation by Atmospheric Distillation and Vacuum Distillation for initial separation, the major modern process technologies employed by Public Sector Undertaking (PSU) refineries for producing petroleum products include:

i) Secondary/Upgradation Technologies for yield improvement such as Thermal cracking processes, viz., Visbreaking, Delayed Coking, Fluidised Catalytic Cracking, INDMAX Technology; and Hydrocracking.

ii) Quality Upgradation Technologies: Catalytic Reforming, Isomerisation, Alkylation, Prime G for meeting the quality specifications of Petrol with regard to octane number, benzene content, aromatics, olefins, sulphur, distillation etc. and Diesel Hydro-desulphurisation (DHDS), Diesel Hydro-treating (DHDT) for diesel for reduction of Sulphur Poly Aromatic Hydrocarbons and cetane number improvement.

The Refineries are mainly dependent on imported crude which results in higher freight cost as well as further costs of inland transportation to refinery and inventory.

To reduce logistic cost, refineries have developed facilities at port location for receipt of imported crude. The landlocked refineries have developed cross-country pipelines for receipt of crude oil from port and supply of petroleum products.

Oil refineries have taken steps to improve the overall efficiency through use of latest generation catalysts, instrumentation and control system, the Minister pointed out.

Adoption of modern technologies, performance improvement programme and energy consumption measures have helped Indian refineries in increasing distillate yield and reduction of specific energy consumption.

The refineries have continuously benchmarked with global refineries to improve performance and reduce operation cost and energy consumption, said Pradhan.

Among other developments, the LPG pipeline network in the country has been increased to 8,296-km.

The pipelines are:
Panipat-Jalandhar LPG Pipeline (Length: 280-km);
Paradip-Haldia-Durgapur LPG pipeline (Length: 673 km) with extension of pipeline to Patna and Muzaffarpur results in total length of 918km;
Ennore-Trichy-Madurai LPG pipeline (Length: 615-km);
Kandla-Gorkhpur LPG pipeline (Length: 2,757-km);
Jamnagar-Loni LPG pipeline (Length: 1,414-km);
Vizag-Secunderabad LPG pipeline (Length: 621-km);
Mangalore-Hassan-Mysuru-Yediyuru LPG pipeline (Length: 356-km);
Uran-Chakan/Shikrapur LPG pipeline (Length: 168-km);
Hassan-Cherlapally LPG pipeline (Length: 680-km);
Mumbai-Uran LPG pipeline (Length: 29-km);
Kochi-Coimbatore-Salem LPG pipeline (Length: 458-km).

LPG pipelines are laid from refineries to LPG bottling plants usually situated outside the city limits.

Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board (PNGRB) established under the PNGRB Act, 2006, in the year 2007, is the authority to grant authorization for laying of LPG pipelines.

Entities that propose to lay, build, operate or expand a pipeline apply to the Board for obtaining an authorisation under this Act, said Pradhan. fiinews.com