MRPL shuts down refinery completely due to water shortage

April 19, 2012

mrplMangalore/New Delhi, April 19: Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd (MRPL) has completely shutdown its 15 million tons a year refinery following shortage of water.

"We had been operating the plant at one-third of the capacity since April 13. The continuing water shortage forced us to take complete shutdown of the refinery now," MRPL Managing Director Uttam Kumar Basu informed media persons in New Delhi.

Meanwhile, the company has approached the Karnataka High Court seeking direction to local authorities for immediately releasing 2.5 million gallons of water per day from the neighbouring Nethravathi river.

"We have prayed to the Hon'ble court that the calculations done by local authorities in withdrawing water supply to Mangalore refinery are flawed. They have not factored in the inflow and so we have prayed for immediate release of water for us to begin operations," he said.

Basu said MRPL has declared "force majeaure" at the refinery and all shipments except those to Mauritius, which relies on India for meeting its fuel needs, will be affected.

Crude oil imports have been stopped as the company already had a huge inventory, he said MRPL begin shuting down different units on Tuesday and currently only crude distillation unit (CDU) was operational.

"CDU too is now being shutdown," he said.

MRPL, a subsidiary of state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC), received around 5.5 million gallons of water daily from Nethravathi river.

Water availability in the Nethravathi river and its downstream dams started depleting from the end of March and the refinery is not getting any supplies currently, he said.

"As a result the district authorities enforced reduction of water supply to MRPL to one-third level and finally on April 11, 2012, completely stopped the intake of water from the Nethravathi river," he said.

Mangalore refinery has three crude units -- Phase I of 4.68 million tonnes, Phase II of 7.14 million tonnes and Phase III of 3 million tonnes -- and supplies oil products in southern states.

From April 13, it had shutdown Phase-II and III and now it has closed even Phase-I.

The shutdown would lead to shortage of supply of products to MRPL fed locations.


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News Network
May 15,2020

Bengaluru, May 15: There is no trace of community spread of COVID-19 pandemic in Karnataka due to the strict measures taken by the State Government, Medical Education Minister Dr K Sudhakar said on Friday.

All those tested positive for the virus here have arrived from other states and are currently being treated in quarantine centres, he tweeted.

Over 25 per cent of the COVID-19 positive cases, which were detected in the state, were related to those who had either come from abroad or other states, and only about 7 per cent cases were associated with the influenza-like diseases, his tweet further read.

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News Network
April 10,2020

Kasaragod, Apr 10: Eleven people died so far in Kerala's northern district Kasargod as they could not access medical facilities in Mangaloru since the border roads were blocked by the Karnataka Government, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said.

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"We will improve the medical facilities in Kasargod and if necessary, patients will be airlifted to the neighbouring districts in Kerala to provide emergency medical assistance," he added.

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News Network
February 27,2020

Bengaluru, Feb 27: The Centre has adopted Prime Minister Narendra Modi's mantra of "Make in India', for India and the world" to build strong defence and security infrastructure in the country, said Defence Minister Rajnath Singh after inaugurating the new Light Combat Helicopter Production Hangar at Helicopter Division in Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) Complex here on Thursday.

According to an official statement, the Defence Minister said in the last five years, India has made significant progress towards manufacturing military equipment indigenously under the 'Make in India' initiative.

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