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Pratim Ranjan Bose

Kolkata, Sept. 21 IndianOil has bid for project management consultancy for rebuilding the dilapidated port-based petroleum product storage and pipeline infrastructure in the civil war torn Liberia, according to sources.

Located on the western coast of Africa, Liberia is completely dependent on import of petroleum products, mostly to keep its limited electricity supply alive. However, the dilapidated condition of the storage tanks and other allied infrastructure — built in the 1950s — of the country’s sole oil company Liberia Petroleum Refining Company (LPRC) poses a serious threat of severing this energy lifeline as well as creating environmental and safety hazards.

In a bid to reserve the situation, LPRC has entered into a $ 25-million turnkey contract with the UK-based Zakhem Construction. The award, however, followed serious controversy and the Liberian government has invited Petroleum India International (PII) to act as a project management consultant (PMC) as well a watchdog on the project development by Zakhem.

PII is a consortium of public sector oil marketing companies including IndianOil, Bharat Petroleum and Engineers India Ltd. The consortium offers technical, managerial as well as human resource services to the oil sector globally.

According to sources, IndianOil, as the lead partner of the consortium, recently agreed to extend its technical expertise to LPRC. The company is still awaiting a response from the Liberian authorities.

“The profile of the PMC contract include offering the technical advise as well as overseeing the entire rebuilding and expansion project which would last for two to three years,” a source said.

Having the largest storage and pipeline infrastructure in India, IndianOil previously extended its consultancy support to Greater Nile Petroleum Corporation of Sudan in developing the operation and maintenance manual.

The company has also bid for a cross-country oil pipeline project in Turkey and natural gas trunk pipeline projects in India.

More Stories on : Overseas Investments | Petroleum

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