As LPG truckers’ stir continues, OMCs take steps to ease supply

As the shutdown of operations by the Southern Region Bulk LPG Transport Owners Association continues, state-owned oil marketing companies (OMCs) have put in place what they call plan B to supply 2.37 crore active domestic consumers in Tamil Nadu and eight crore consumers in six southern states.

Three companies – Indian Oil, Hindustan Petroleum and Bharat Petroleum – are running extra shifts at bottling plants that supply liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) through pipelines. They also send trucks carrying cylinders., to these facilities to collect refilled cylinders. “All three companies marketing LPG under the brands Indane, HP Gas, Bharat Gas are helping each other. Pipeline supply facilities are also operating on Sunday,” said an official from HPCL.

As far as Chennai is concerned, Indian Oil has two interconnected bottling plants. The Chennai Petroleum Corporation refinery in Manali also supplies LPG to IOCL. Official sources of Indian Oil said that the city will not face any problem in withdrawing supplies as they have four-and-a-half days of stocks left.

A distributor for another company said its last load was distributed on Saturday. On Monday, he will only take one load per day instead of the usual two. “I was told to go to another oil company’s factory to pick up the cargo,” he said.

Another distributor said that despite it being the Deepavali season, the bookings were not very high. “They are slightly above normal. We can manage. But deliveries take about three to four days and not the same day,” he said.

Southern Region Bulk LPG Transport Owners Association is protesting against new contract norms for tanker trucks supplying LPG.

Association president K. Sunderraj said that they held meetings with senior officials of OMCs throughout the day and were waiting for a positive response. “Our contract period ended on August 31, the new term begins on November 1… Our association also has single truck owners and nearly 500 people from those trucks were affected by some problems. We want these to be solved. We have no intention of causing any trouble to the consumer during the holiday period,” he said.