BPCL Sets up Second LPG Bottling Plant in Odisha

Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd. (BPCL) is setting up a LPG Bottling Plant at Village Barkhani, District Balangir in Odisha State. The plant will be spread over 23-acres and will have the capacity to produce 42 lakh cylinders per year. It is expected to be operational by March 2020 and supply LPG cylinders to consumers in 14 districts of Odisha namely: Balangir, Jharsuguda, Sundargarh, Sambalpur, Bargarh, Kalahandi, Sonepur, Koraput, Malkangiri, Nowrangpur, Boudh, Kandhamal, Raygada and Nuapada.

This will be the second such plant in the State – the company is already having a plant at Khurda. Other Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) have LPG Bottling Plants at Balasore, Jharsuguda and Jatni, and the total bottling capacity of these four plants is 2.80 crore cylinders per annum.

In addition to the proposed LPG Bottling Plant at Balangir, OMCs have plans to set up new plants at Bhubaneswar and Rayagada. After completion of these projects, Odisha will have a total of seven LPG Bottling Plants, with a cumulative capacity of 4.06 crore cylinders per annum.

The demand for packed LPG in Odisha was 454.3-kt last year, which is expected to reach 610-kt by 2020.

Laying the Foundation Stone for the plant, the Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas, Skill Development & Entrepreneurship, Mr. Dharmendra noted that the plant will give a boost to the PMUY initiative scheme and the main beneficiaries would be tribals and dalits in the state of Odisha. “This is only the beginning; BPCL is coming up with a mega ethanol plant of Rs. 800-crore at Bargarh, which will use agricultural waste,” he said.