Cairn india commences construction on 590-km oil pipeline in Rajasthan

23 July 2008

Cairn India said that it  today began the construction of the country's first heated oil pipeline,  to transport "waxy" crude from its the Mangala terminal in Barmer in Rajasthan across 590km to Salaya in Gujarat.

Engineering and construction major Larsen and Toubro is laying a 24-inch pipeline for the Indain subsidiary of Cairn UK. Cairn is considering extending the pipeline to Bhogad, 80 km from Salaya, which is in close proximity to the Marine National Park, to avoid any environmental hazard to the area.

The pipes are being manufactured by Jindal Saw at a contract value of approximately $200 million.

GE Energy of Austria has bagged the order to manufacture 32 reciprocating gas engines for the pumping stations from Cairn India Ltd for its cross-country, heated oil pipeline currently under construction in India.  The gas engines are being built at GE Energy's gas engine manufacturing center in Jenbach, Austria. Delivery is scheduled to commence from September 2008 to February 2009, with commercial start-up at Cairn's pipes expected to begin in June 2009.

This project is not only GE's largest engine order in India, but also the global oil and gas industry's first use of Jenbacher technology to support a heated crude pipeline project.

In 2006 Cairn decided to take on the huge financial and logistic commitment involved in building a pipeline. The fate of the Rajasthan project was shrouded in uncertainty for months as the partners debated how to get the reserves discovered by Cairn to market.