THE Indian Oil Corp (IOC) is planning to spend around $292 million on new pipelines that will boost its annual transportation capacity by 10 million tons, a company official said earlier this month. “We are aggressive on building pipelines because they are a safe and cheap way of transporting oil and fuels,” Mr P.K. Chakraborti, Indian Oil’s director of pipelines, said in New Delhi.
The state-owned company plans to add 4,000km of pipelines to its existing network, nearly doubling it to 9,273km by 2012, IOC chairman Sarthak Behuria said in September, and the company may add a further 1,200km of pipelines by June 2010 according to its current plans.