The country the world's third-largest energy consumer ,depends on imports for nearly 88% of its crude oil needs .To safeguard against supply shocks it has built underground storage facilities with a total capacity of 5.3 million tonnes at Vishapatnam in Andhra Pradesh ,and Mangaluru and padur in Karnataka.
Quantity of the crude available in the caverns varies depending on market conditions,'' Minister of State for Petroleum and natural gas Suresh Gopi said in a written reply in the Upper house ,'' Currently ,ISPRL has around 3.372 million tonnes od crude stock available ,which is around 64 per cent of the total storage capicity .
Reserves fluctuate with demand and supply
He explained that the real reserve changes basedon the availabve stock and how much is actully used and both of these factors are always changing.
The status of reserve has come under attention due to disruption related to the conflict in West Asia,impacting the supply of crude oil,natural gas,and LPG from Gulf nations.India used about 110 billion dollars in the first 11 months of this financialyear to bring in araound 228 million tonnes of crude oil,which makes up 88.7 percent of what the country needed.
Heavy reliance on key shipping route
About half of these omports were from countries like Saudi Arabia ,Iraq,and the UAE ,with the goods being sent through the important Strait of Hormuz.
India spent USD 12.4 billion importing about half of its natural gas consumption between aprail 2025 and February 2026,while araound 60 per cent of LPG demandz was met through omports.
A large part -85 to 95 percent of LPG and around 30 percent of gas -uses the same narrow sea route. While problems with crude oil have been partly solved by getting oil from Russia ,west africa the US ,and Latin America ,the supply of gas and lpg to factories and businesses has been limited
Plans to expend storage capicity
Gopi mentioned that the government had approved two more commercial and strategic reserves in July 2021 with a total storage capacity of 6.5 million tonnes-4 million tonnes at Chandikhol in Odisha and 2.5 million tonnes at Padur in karnataka.
He mentioned that the work for contruction at Padur has been awarded on October 1,2025
The Government has also taken steps to phase -1 reserves into commercial assets ANDOC has an agreemnet with ISPRL that lets them use a cavern with a capacity of 750000 tonnes located in Mangaluru.
Diversifying crude sources
India's overall storage capacity which includes facilites owned by oil marketing companies,is enough to meet approximately 74 days of the country's oil demand.
Gopi emphasized again that the actual reserve is a changing figure influenced by both the available stock and the real consumption ,niether of which remains constant .
To lessen reliance on one area ,public sector oil and gas companies get crude oil from many diffrent suppliers.
He added," Currently ,these PSEs import crude oil from 41 Countries ,including new suppliers such as the USA , Nigeria ,Angola,Canada ,Colombia ,Brazil ,and Mexico as well as traditional suppliers in the middle East like Iraq,Saudi Arabia,the UAE, kuwait and Qatar''.
