Fuel pipeline from Manali to airport to open next month

Chennai: Truckers' stir and oil company employees' protest will no longer keep airport officials on tenterhooks, as the Indian Oil Corporation is
all set to commission a 95-km pipeline to move aviation turbine fuel (ATF) from its refinery at Manali to the airport.
The pipeline costing Rs 60 crore has been completed and would be commissioned next month, said a senior official of Indian Oil. "Quality trials using water are underway to rule out leakage and other defects. The idea is to equip the pipeline for continuous supply of ATF after it is commissioned," he added.
The pipeline will help Indian Oil move ATF from the Manali refinery to storage terminals at the airport without depending on expensive and time-consuming container trucks. This will ensure a hassle-free supply of 3,000 kilo litres of jet fuel, the installed capacity of IndianOil's terminal at the airport.
Oil companies already use similar pipelines to move ATF to airports at Mumbai and New Delhi. It is learnt that IndianOil may also allow other oil companies to use the pipeline.
Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum also supply ATF to the airport, while Reliance's 1,000-kilolitre ATF storage terminal will be ready in a couple of months. At present, around 25 oil tankers are engaged by the three oil companies to transport ATF to the airport.
When the recent truckers' stir began, the airport had ATF stocks for just three days. The three oil companies anticipated a possible disruption of movement of trucks and stocked up 5,000 kilolitres of ATF. But, the situation deteriorated with the officials of oil companies also striking work.
16/01/09 V Ayyappan/Times of India

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Categories: Airports Jan 2009