If the strike by the Southern Region LPG transporters demanding higher transportation charges continues beyond Wednesday, it is likely to hit the bottling in 17 bottling plants in the State. These plants belong to Indane, Bharatgas and HPCL.
According to petroleum corporation sources, 14 bottling plants are fed by road from Mangalore and Chennai and two plants of the Indane in Chennai are fed by pipeline and one belonging to Bharatgas in Coimbatore is fed by rail. All the 17 plants on an average roll-out nearly 3.91 lakh cylinders a day.
Indane is a market leader with over 58 per cent subscriber base, followed by Bharatgas with close to 25 per cent share and the rest with HPCL.
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The bulk LPG available with the bottling plants at present will help in continuing the bottling activities till Wednesday. The plants will go dry, if the strike continued.
Meanwhile, petroleum corporations are pinning hopes on talks scheduled to take place at Chennai on Monday with the bulk LPG transporters, petroleum corporations and civil supplies officials.
Indane customers in Chennai and Bharatgas customers in Coimbatore and nearby areas will not be affected as the plants are fed either by pipeline or rail.
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The other 10 bottling plants of Indane, three of Bharatgas and one of HPCL are likely to be hit.
Petroleum corporations are now sensitising their dealers/distributors to discourage any panic booking by consumers as it could lead to an artificial scarcity in the market and an unmanageable backlog.
After a breakthrough in talks, resumption of LPG supply will just require 48 hours and there will not be any prolonged scarcity, they said.
The Southern Region Bulk LPG Transport Operators Association secretary N.R. Karthik said that they quoted Rs. 3.09 per tonne per km for the plains and Rs 3.16 for the ghat section to transport LPG from the ports to the bottling plants.
In three rounds of talks between the association and the oil industry negotiation committee – the three major oil companies have agreed to pay only Rs. 2.94 for the plains and Rs 3.01 for the ghat section.
“We have come down to Rs. 3.06 for the plains and Rs 3.13 for the ghat sections, but the committee refused to increase any further resulting in the strike call,” he said.
But in the last three years many new toll plazas have come up and the existing plazas also increased toll rates.
In the tender conditions the oil companies have made it mandatory for LPG tankers to have an ABS, vehicle tracking system and an additional driver and all these costs will make it unviable for us to accept the rates offered by the oil companies, Mr. Karthik said.