Kochi Salem Pipeline’s (KSPL) LPG pipeline project will be commissioned up to Palakkad in Kerala by April 2020. KSPL is a 50:50 joint venture (JV) between the Bharat Petroleum Corporation (BPCL) and the Indian Oil Corporation (IOCL).
The overall length of the pipeline has been reduced to 206 km till Palakkad from 428 km, which was initially up to Salem. Failure in getting clearance from the Tamil Nadu government forced the company to terminate the pipeline at Palakkad, as of now.
Though the project will be commissioned in April 2020, the operations will begin only by May-June 2020. The Rs 1,000 crore project is being implemented in three phases. Phase-I from BPCL’s Kochi Refinery to IOCL’s bottling plant at Udyamperoor was completed four-five months back. The phase has a capacity of 12,000-15,000 tonne a month.
Phase-II of the project is from Kochi to Palakkad. While HPCL has a bottling plant at Palakkad, IOCL and BPCL have plants in Coimbatore. Phase-III (Kochi Refinery to Puthuvypeen) pipeline works lag behind with only about 30 percent completion due.
With works at Puthuvypeen resuming again, the 44 km pipeline works from BPCL Kochi to Puthuvupeen is back in full swing with completion scheduled in 14 months. In the BPCL to Udayamperoor phase, a total of 800 LPG tanker lorries will stay away from roads per month, while in the Kochi-Palakkad stretch, over 2,200 LPG trucks will be off roads once the project becomes operational in May-June 2020.
