ADNOC signs agreement for 5.86m barrels strategic crude oil reserve

In the presence of His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, and India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) and the Indian Strategic Petroleum Reserves Ltd (ISPRL), agreed on Wednesday to establish a strategic crude oil storage in the southern Indian city of Mangalore.

The agreement with ISPRL, an Indian government-owned company mandated to store crude oil for emergency needs, covers the storage of 5.86 million barrels of ADNOC crude oil in underground facilities, at the Karnataka facility.

Copies of the agreement, were exchanged by Dr Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, UAE Minister of State and ADNOC Group CEO, and India’s Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, at a ceremony in New Delhi, during a visit to India by a high-ranking UAE delegation, led by HH Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed.

Dr Al Jaber said: "This agreement, championed by the leadership of both countries, introduces a new strategic energy partnership with India that leverages the UAE and ADNOC’s expertise and oil resources. This mutually beneficial partnership will create opportunities for ADNOC to increase its market share in delivering high quality crude to India's expanding refining industry, while also helping India meet its growing energy demand and safeguard its security.

"India is an important energy market and this storage agreement reinforces ADNOC’s role as one of the world’s most trusted and reliable suppliers of oil. We will utilise the Mangalore facility to not only build on our existing business relationships across India but also to explore new downstream opportunities for ADNOC’s expanding range of refined and petrochemical products," he added.

The Petroleum Minister of India, Dharmendra Pradhan, said: "It is our hope that this strategic agreement will build on the strong bonds of cooperation between our two nations and provide the foundation for a mutually beneficial energy partnership. This will also help to ensure India's energy security and enable us to meet the nation's growing demand for energy. This agreement is also a reflection of the vision of the Honourable Prime Minister of India towards strengthening hydrocarbon linkages with UAE in a win-win basis."

The Mangalore oil storage facility is the third that ADNOC has had access to in Asia. In Japan, the ADNOC has oil stored in the Kiire’s Oil Terminal in Kagoshima City, and in South Korea a similar agreement allowed ADNOC to store oil in KNOC’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve. In addition to helping to ensure energy security, the oil storage facilities enable ADNOC to efficiently and competitively meet market demand across south east Asia.

India is 79 per cent dependent on imports to meet its crude oil needs, eight per cent of which is supplied by the UAE. In addition to the Mangalore facility, the ISPRL is building underground storage facilities at Visakhapatnam, in Andhra Pradesh, and Padur, in Karnataka, to stockpile 20 million barrels of oil, enough to meet India’s oil requirement for 10 days.

During the visit to India, Dr Al Jaber also signed a MoU to explore options to supply crude oil to West Bengal’s Haldia Petrochemicals Ltd’s (HPL) new refinery in Kolkata, which will have a consumption capacity of 300,000 barrels of oil per day.

Under the terms of the MoU, ADNOC and HPL will also examine the possibility of ADNOC increasing the supply of light refined naphtha to HPL.