New Delhi: In a significant development, a memorandum of understanding (MoU) has been signed between Numaligarh Refinery Limited (NRL) and Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI) for the transportation of over-dimensional cargo and project cargo of Numaligarh refinery using inland water transport. The MoU signing was held in the august presence of Sarbananda Sonowal, Union Minister for Ports, Shipping and Waterways and AYUSH and Rameshwar Teli, Union Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas, who attended the ceremony held at Kunjakanan-NRL Township virtually.
P Srinivasan, Director (NER), IWAI and AP Chakraborty, Senior CGM (Projects), NRL were the signatories of the MoU. Also present on the occasion were Atul Bora, Minister of Agriculture and Veterinary, Assam and Biswajit Phukan, MLA, Sarupathar; Bhabendra Nath Bharali, MLA, Dergaon; Ashutosh Gautam, Member (Technical) and Member (Traffic), IWAI; SK Barua, MD, NRL; BJ Phukan, Director (Technical) NRL and I Mittra, Director (Finance) NRL. The MoU will pave the way for making rivers navigable throughout the year by IWAI and assist in bringing large cargoes and capital equipment including single piece prefabricated process plants for refinery expansion projects.
As part of the Hydrocarbon Vision 2030 of the Government of India, Numaligarh Refinery Limited has embarked on a major refinery expansion project to treble its existing refining capacity from three MMTPA to nine MMTPA. As part of the project, over 1000 equipment shall be transported from across the country and abroad. Several of the equipment shall fall under the category of Over Dimensional Consignment (ODC) and Overweight Consignment (OWC).NRL intends to implement multimodal transportation through road and water ways to secure delivery of the equipment.
Due to various limitations in road transportation, the sea and riverine routes shall be leveraged to connect the major ports in western region of the nation to the Northeast region up to NRL. As part of the transportation process, NRL shall be using self-derrick vessels for transportation at sea up to Haldia port. Barges shall be used for transportation along the riverine route along Indo- Bangladesh protocol route and Assam.
Thirteen ODCs have been identified for transportation exclusively through the sea and waterways. The maximum dimension of the ODC equipment shall be 97 M in length, 10.3 M in diameter and 960 MT in weight. As the maximum length of the barge is restricted to 60 m, equipment with length larger than 60 m shall be transported in two pieces. Dredging operations shall be carried out extensively along the riverine route to facilitate the transportation process. RORO facilities shall be augmented at the NRL jetty as per the requirement.
The infrastructural development being envisaged along the waterways can be used in future for shipping of dry cargo from the refinery and agricultural produce from the region, thereby enhancing connectivity of the Northeast with the rest of the country and also extending our footprint to global export destinations. /BI/
