Union Minister Pradhan visits cavern in Vizag

Hyderabad, June 25: Union Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan visited the cavern, petrol storage centre, in Vishakhapatnam on Thursday. Indian Strategic Petroleum Reserves Ltd (ISPRL) is constructing two more caverns at Mangalore and Padur (near Udipi) as part of the efforts to evacuate crude during emergencies and augment the country's energy security and to store five million tonnes of crude oil. The construction of cavern at Vizag with a cost of Rs 2,000 crores took off in 2008 and was completed recently. The Vizag cavern can store upto 1.33 million tonnes of crude oil. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will dedicate this cavern to the nation in July. In this regard, the Union Minister inspected the arrangements and discussed with ISPRL CEO Rajan Pillai and top officials of the district administration.