Chennai Port assails CPCL’s SBM project

India’s Chennai Port Trust (ChPT) has termed the Rs 1,000-crore (US$208.4 million) single buoy mooring (SBM) project of Chennai Petroleum Corporation Ltd. (CPCL) as “a breach of agreement”. The refiner will benefit from the project because it can import larger quantities of crude through very large crude carriers, which cannot berth at the Chennai port. CPCL, which imports about 10 million tons of crude oil for its refinery at Manali, north of Chennai, is one of the key customers of ChPT, fetching the port revenues of about Rs 13 crore (US$2.7 million) annually. In 2003, CPCL, which received wharfage concession, signed an agreement with the Port Trust under which it agreed to stay with the port for the next 30 years. CPCL Managing Director K.K. Acharya said that the company had no alternative but to go in for single buoy mooring as the pipeline connecting ChPT to the refinery “has outlived its life.” Unless an alternative mode of transporting crude oil from ships to the refinery was arranged, the refinery was in danger of being shut down, he said. (August 12, 2009)