New Delhi: Petroleum Minister Ram Naik is likely to make a presentation to Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee on February 3 on efforts to achieve energy security through increased exploration and production, acquisition of equity oil abroad and building strategic crude oil reserves.

Naik would present a plan for building strategic reserves to meet the country's 45- day requirement in stages beginning with storage capacity at Rajkot, Mangalore and Vizag to stock five million tonnes crude oil to meet contingency requirements like disruption in supplies in event of a war, sources said.

The storage capacity, sufficient to meet the country's 15 days requirement, would cost Rs 5,200 crore and is proposed to be funded through a special purpose vehicle (SPV) with equity contribution from all domestic refineries to meet the capital cost, while the operating and inventory cost is proposed to be mopped up through a cess on petroleum products, they said.

Currently, the total crude oil storage capacity with domestic refineries is 19 days (5.7 million tonne). Of the proposed tankage, 2.5 million tonnes will be at Rajkot, 1.5 million tonnes at Mangalore and one million tonnes at Vizag.

Naik's presentation would also detail the success of New Exploration Licensing Policy (NELP) including the recent hydrocarbon finds in Krishna Godavari basin and Surat blocks.

Besides highlighting the policy regime for attracting private investment in exploration and production, it would also list the equity oil fields acquired abroad and the future roadmap encompassing offering more oil and gas and coal bed methane (CBM) blocks for exploration in forthcoming rounds of bidding, they said.

PTI