India is looking for private investors to build and operate its largest strategic petroleum reserve site, at Chandikhol in Odisha on the Bay of Bengal. The facility would hold up to 4 million tonnes of crude oil and would boost India’s strategic reserve capacity by about 80 percent, according to tender documents reported by the Economic Times and carried by OilPrice.
The project is costed at an estimated 910 million dollars, and the government is offering a grant of about 546 million dollars, 51.4 billion rupees, as viability gap support for the private investment. Bids must be submitted by February 26, 2027.
India’s existing reserves at Visakhapatnam, Mangaluru and Padur are managed by the state through Indian Strategic Petroleum Reserves Limited. A privately built and operated Phase II site would extend the public private model India has been moving toward since it began leasing reserve space to commercial users, while strategic control stays with the state. The tender follows disruption to Middle Eastern crude supplies, which sharpened the case for a larger emergency cushion in a country that imports most of its oil.