NRL signs MoU with Inland Waterways Authority of India

A CORRESPONDENT

NUMALIGARH: A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed on Thursday between Numaligarh Refinery Limited (NRL) and Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI ) for '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 Union Minister for Ports, Shipping and Waterways and AYUSH Sarbananda Sonowal and Union Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas Rameshwar Teli who attended the ceremony held at Kunjakanan-NRL Township virtually. P Srinivasan, Director (NER), IWAI and A P Chakraborty, Sr.CGM( Projects), NRL were the signatories of the MoU. Also present on the occasion were Minister of Agriculture and Veterinary Atul Bora, NRL MD S K Barua.

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 project. Also it will open up trade and commerce as outward freight movement in large consignment will be possible from river Dhansiri, adjoining the refinery in the future.

As part of the Hydrocarbon Vision 2030 of Government of India, Numaligarh Refinery Limited has embarked on a major refinery expansion project to treble its existing refining capacity from 3 MMTPA to 9 MMTPA. As part of the project, over 1,000 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 Over Weight 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.13 ODCs have been identified for transportation exclusively through the sea and waterways.

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