India's first SPM facility at IOCL Vadinar achieved milestone; berths 6,000th Oil tanker
Mr S M Vaidya, Chairman, IndianOil and Mr D S Nanaware, Director (Pipelines), IndianOil, welcomed the crew of MT Yio to celebrate the momentous occasion.
New Delhi: India's first unloading Single Point Mooring (SPM) facility, commissioned by IndianOil in 1978 at Vadinar in Dev Bhumi Dwarka district of Gujarat, achieved a significant milestone with the berthing of the 6,000th Oil tanker- MT Yio, a Liberian VLCC (Very Large Crude Carrier) carrying Basrah Crude Oil from Iraq. Mr S M Vaidya, Chairman, IndianOil and Mr D S Nanaware, Director (Pipelines), IndianOil, welcomed the crew of MT Yio to celebrate the momentous occasion.
Speaking on the occasion, Mr S M Vaidya said, "This morning I boarded a jetty off the Vadinar coast to travel for an hour into the seas where we celebrated the momentous milestone of the berthing of the 6000th Oil Tanker at Vadinar terminal. Commissioned in 1978, IndianOil's Single Point Mooring (SPM) terminal here was the first in India. We currently operate two SPM terminals at Vadinar for unloading of crude oil which are transported to shore tanks through pipelines, around 14 km of which is subsea. Subsequently, the crude traverses through cross country pipelines to IndianOil's refineries at Vadodara, Mathura & Panipat.
As our team successfully berthed MT Yio, the 330 metre-long VLCC or Very Large Crude Carrier, carrying 3 lakh kilo litres of Basrah crude from Iraq, I could not help lauding the remarkable contributions of IOCians who have been working under the most challenging circumstances to keep the nation fuelled. To put it in context, 3 lakh kilo litres of crude oil that MT Yio is carrying is adequate to meet about 40% of the daily fuel requirement of our entire nation.
Till date, the Vadinar Terminal has received over 735 MMT (Million Metric Tonnes) of crude and has been pivotal in keeping our refineries running throughout the year. Installations like Vadinar play a vital role in enabling IndianOil to meet 50% of the petroleum demand of the country. So every time you kickstart your bike or board a plane or cook that happy meal on an Indane cylinder; remember that the energy that trickled down to you might well have been brought to our shores by the Bhagiraths of IndianOil-Vadinar or other such installations.
On board MT Yio, I met Capt. Modak Laique Ali Mohammad, a compatriot stewarding a phenomenal multi-national team of energy sailors. MT Yio incidentally was also the 1950th VLCC berthed at Vadinar. The day took a nostalgic turn when I could digitally connect to Mr Paramjit singh, the first undersea diver who had inspected MT NS Bose in 1978, the first vessel ever that was berthed by Team IndianOil at Vadinar.
While interacting with the vessel's crew and my colleagues on the ground, I urged them to cater to the highest safety and environmental sustainability standards while undertaking challenging offshore marine operations like this. Speaking of the environment, Vadinar also shines bright as a mark of IndianOil's unwavering green resolve that came to the forefront when we translocated the precious corals in Vadinar last year, before laying its new sub-sea pipelines.
Congratulations to my colleagues at Vadinar for their remarkable commitment that keeps the IndianOil's flag flying high. These IOCians, many of whom are bright and young Engineers, rise above the challenges of the remote location to continuously set new benchmarks of operational excellence while serving the nation. Kudos to the #IndianOil Energy Soldiers"!
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