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Guwahati: An MoU was inked on Thursday 26th August 2021, between Numaligarh Refinery Limited (NRL) and Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI) for Transportation of Over-Dimensional Cargo and Project Cargo of Numaligarh Refinery Using Inland Water Transport.
The MoU will pave the way for making rivers navigable throughout the year by IWAI and assist in bringing large cargoes and capital equipment including single-piece prefabricated process plants for the refinery expansion project. Also, it will open up trade and commerce as outward freight movement in a large consignment will be possible from river Dhansiri, adjoining the refinery in the future.
P Srinivasan, Director (NER), IWAI, and AP Chakraborty, Sr CGM (Projects), NRL were the signatories of the MoU.
The MoU signing ceremony was held in the presence of Sarbananda Sonowal, Union Minister for Ports, Shipping and Waterways and AYUSH and Rameswar Teli, Union Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas, Atul Bora, State Minister of Agriculture and Veterinary and Biswajit Phukan, MLA, Sarupathar, Bhabendra Nath Bharali, MLA, Dergaon, and SK Barua, MD, NRL, who attended the ceremony held at Kunjakanan-NRL Township virtually.
As part of the Hydrocarbon Vision-2030 of the Government of India, NRL has embarked on a major refinery expansion project to treble its existing refining capacity from 3 MMTPA to 9 MMT PA. As part of the project over 1.000 pieces of equipment shall be transported from across the country and abroad. Several of the equipment shall fall under the category of 'Over Dimensional Consignment (ODC) and Over Weight Consignment (OWC)'. NRL intends to implement multi-modal transportation through roads and waterways to secure the delivery of the equipment.
Due to various limitations in road transportation, the sea and riverine routes will be leveraged to connect the major ports in the western region of the nation to the north-eastern region up to NRL. As part of the transportation process, NRL will be using Self Derrick Vessels for transportation at sea up to Haldia port. Barges shall be used for transportation along the riverine route along Indo Bangladesh Protocol Route and Assam. Thirteen ODCs have been identified for transportation exclusively through the sea and waterways.
