It has been seven months since the field office opened in Lothar to build a storage facility along with a petroleum pipeline from Amlekhgunj. But the work to secure the construction site has not yet been completed.

A storage facility is being built on the banks of the Lothar River, which flows through the border of Chitwan and Makawanpur districts. Despite building a high embankment to stop the flow, the river surface is above ground level.

The Corporation is going to build a storage facility with a pipeline in Piple Lothar, Rapti Municipality-1, Chitwan. The work of purchasing land for this started 9 years ago in Falgun 2073 BS. The Corporation opened a field office in Lothar on Friday, August 16, to take forward the construction work. The Corporation officials who came to that program had said that they would work very quickly.

‘We are currently strengthening the dam (embankment). After completing the land consolidation work and constructing a boundary wall on the land owned by the Oil Corporation, we will hand over the land to the Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) for other construction,’ said project head Pradeep Kumar Yadav. He said that a tender will be floated within a month to collect soil for land reclamation. Yadav said that this work will be completed within the next 6 to 9 months. After that, the Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) will take this land for construction. IOC has prepared its detailed project report (DPR). An understanding was reached on the pipeline and storage project on 18 Jestha 2080 during the visit of the then Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal to India.

After the MoU was signed between Dahal and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a BTU agreement was signed between IOC and Nepal Oil Corporation (NOC) on 17 Asoj 2081 BS. NOC officials said that the work of the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) has also started. With the establishment of the field office, the work of paving the road leading to the highway has been completed.

There is a land of the Oil Corporation within the highway. But it was difficult to cut down the road because there were trees in front of it. The field office official said that it took time to remove 10 large sal, saaj, and karam trees. Along with clearing the road, the corporation has put up a gate for the project along the highway. The work of filling the fish ponds inside the land has also been completed.

The corporation has bought about 26 bighas of land in Lothar. All the land needs to be filled with soil. Since the ground is below the level of the Lothar river, the land at the project site needs to be filled by an average of three meters. The corporation is preparing to issue a tender for this within a month. The embankment of the Lothar river is getting old, so the corporation is strengthening it.

The work of pouring a concrete slope of about 900 meters on the upper surface of the embankment is nearing completion. The dam is being filled with a net on the Lothar side of the river. The field office staff, who are working to strengthen the dam even after the land at the project site is filled, informed. Out of the 26 bighas of land purchased for the project, the ownership of about two kattas is yet to come to the corporation.

The corporation is going to build a pipeline and a petroleum storage facility at a total cost of Rs 14.96 billion. The construction of the pipeline has cost Rs 4.288 billion and the cost of the storage facility is Rs 9.808 billion.

This pipeline will be 62 kilometers long. Earlier, a 69-kilometer petroleum pipeline from India to Motihari was completed in 18 months. The corporation has stated that the pipeline will be laid from Amlekhgunj to Lothar, parallel to the East-West Highway. Once the pipeline is ready, petroleum products will come from Motihari to Lothar.

According to the information provided by the Oil Corporation, the diameter of the pipe (circular) will be 11.5 inches. It will flow 273 kiloliters of oil per hour. Corporation officials had informed that the pipeline has the capacity to transport 20 million (two crore) tons of fuel per year. For the first time outside the valley, infrastructure is being built in Lothar to store aviation fuel.

The storage facility will hold 33,000 kiloliters of petrol. There will be three tanks with a capacity of 11 kiloliters of petrol each. Similarly, there will be three storage facilities with a capacity of 15,500 kiloliters for diesel. Where 46,500 kiloliters of diesel will be stored. Similarly, there will be two kerosene storage facilities with a capacity of 800 kiloliters each.

There will be three storage facilities for aviation fuel. Each of these storage facilities, which can store 3,600 kiloliters of oil, will hold 10,800 kiloliters of aviation fuel. The NPC officials had informed the field office that the storage facility can store 91,900 kiloliters of petroleum products in total.