BPCL launches speed boat for mooring terminal surveillance

November 26, 2014 09:31 am | Updated 09:31 am IST - KOCHI:

Speed boat would help bolster the security to the facility and extended his support to the new projects to be established by the BPCL.

Speed boat would help bolster the security to the facility and extended his support to the new projects to be established by the BPCL.

To enhance the security of its Single Point Mooring (SPM) terminal off the Kochi coast, the state-owned Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited has deployed a speed boat with a contingent of CISF Quick reaction team.

Launching the boat here on Tuesday, Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala said the speed boat would help bolster the security to the facility and extended his support to the new projects to be established by the BPCL. On the occasion, the Minister also made an announcement with regard to a decision made by the INTUC union not to hold any strikes or hartals on the BPCL premises so as to enable a smooth functioning of the company.

Prasad K. Panicker, Executive Director, BPCL, said the company was forging ahead with its plans to set up petrochemical complex and planned to begin its works by April 2015.”We have received all the requisite approvals and are now waiting for getting an environmental clearance to begin the project,” he said. A decision to deploy speed boat for the security of the SPM was taken during a review meeting conducted in April last year. The boat, with a speed of 20 knots, will be operated on a round-the-clock basis and is equipped with communication devices to contact the Port Control and BPCL Control Rooms on the shore. The SPM terminal, a Rs.800-crore project located in Kochi offshore was established in 2007 to enable transfer of crude oil from vessels to the storage tanks located at Shore Tank Farm (STF) at Puthuvypeen through a subsea pipe line. So far, the agency has transferred a volume of 62 million tonnes of crude oil using the system.

Securing the SPM, located about 19.5 km from the shore, has been a topic of discussion for long. Surveillance for the buoy, which acts as a mooring point and interconnect for very large crude carriers to offload oil, was left with the guards on the Maintenance and Support Vessel located adjacent to it.

Though the State government has declared SPM as a prohibited area for a distance of about one nautical mile, there were reports of fishing boats violating the ban. The threat was all the more heightened given its proximity to the international maritime boundary line.

0 / 0
Sign in to unlock member-only benefits!
  • Access 10 free stories every month
  • Save stories to read later
  • Access to comment on every story
  • Sign-up/manage your newsletter subscriptions with a single click
  • Get notified by email for early access to discounts & offers on our products
Sign in

Comments

Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.

We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.