Cairn India will soon commission a 600-km heated crude oil pipeline, the largest in the world, to transport oil found in Barmer district of Rajasthan to Gujarat coast.
“We have on Tuesday laid the last of the pipes on the ground and now we would soon begin testing and then commissioning of the pipeline,” Cairn India Director, Strategy, P. Elango told reporters here.
The Barmer-Salaya pipeline would be commissioned in a record 14 months and would enable sale of Rajasthan oil to Indian Oil Corp, Reliance Industries and Essar Oil.
Cairn is investing almost a billion dollars in laying a 670-km pipeline from Barmer to Bhogat, close to the Gujarat coast, to transport crude oil to the refiners. Phase-I of the pipeline — Barmer to Salaya which is almost 600-km, is set for commissioning this quarter.
Mr. Elango said the Phase-I of pipeline is on schedule for commissioning in early 2010 and the 70-km Phase-II to Bhogat would be taken up after this.
Cairn, at present, trucks crude to Jamnagar for sale to RIL and to Kandla for onward shipment to the Mangalore Refinery.
The pipeline would help bringing down the transportation cost from $6-7 per barrel to about $1, he added.
