The Hindu Business Line : LPG shortage will end by October 10: Aiyar

AFTER an hour-long emergency meeting with the Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) on the cooking gas (LPG) shortage issue, the Petroleum Minister, Mr Mani Shankar Aiyar, said that by October 10, the Government would ensure that there was no shortage of cooking gas in the country. This would be done by stepping up production and increasing imports.

``By October 10, Indian Oil Corporation, Hindustan Petroleum Corporation and Bharat Petroleum will all produce the required amount of LPG. So I see there is no cause for panic for this completely temporary shortage,'' he said. Production is being stepped up and inventories are being reduced to meet the deficit, the Minister said adding that imports are also being resorted to.

Mr Aiyar said that the country was facing an LPG shortage of half a million tonnes due to unplanned shutdowns of units for maintenance in some of the refineries.

Talking about the reasons for this situation, he said that as far as IOC was concerned, a workers strike in its bottling plants in Delhi on September 26 was the cause for the backlog and the company would work on Sunday to make up for the shortage of 380 loads.

HPCL and BPCL werefacing constraints of bulk supplies. The two companies would move adequate quantities from west to make up for the two-days shortage. He also said that the Government's order to regulate LPG supplies to check black-marketing of the subsidised product for commercial use would be diluted so as to ease supplies to domestic users. The Petroleum Ministry had asked oil firms to supply cylinders to LPG distributors based on their base. It had also put a cap on issuing new connections in regions, where the distributor had already reached the ceiling.

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