May 22, 2010

Maharashtra Chief Minister visits CPCL’s Sea Water Desalination Plant with Union Minister for Petroleum & Natural Gas

 Shri Ashok Chavan, Hon’ble Chief Minister of Maharashtra, and Shri Murli Deora, Hon’ble Union Minister for Petroleum & Natural Gas, visited CPCL’s Desalination Plant at Kattupalli near Manali Refinery on May 23 and held discussions on the details of setting up a Desalination Plant for augmenting water supply to Mumbai. Mr.Amin Patel, Member of Legislative Assembly (South Mumbai constituency) and Mr.S.Sundareshan, Secretary to Government of India, Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas and Anil Diggikar, Additional Municipal Commissioner, Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai accompanied them and took part in the discussions. After a detailed presentation on the project an in-depth discussion took place along with Shri K Balachandran, Managing Director, Shri N.C.Sridharan, Director (Finance) and Shri S.Chandrasekaran, Director (Technical) of CPCL wherein all the techno-commercial and other essential project details like clearances required, land requirement, power requirement, project cost break-up, funding options, cost of water at the hands of the consumers, etc were discussed in the context of setting up of a suitably large scale Desalination Plant in Mumbai. The Hon’ble Chief Minister of Maharashtra commended the pioneering efforts of CPCL in putting up such a facility which would not only make CPCL self-sufficient in its water requirements but also benefit the society in the larger context.

     Chennai Petroleum Corporation Limited (CPCL) had set up a 5.8 MGD (26.367 MLD) Reverse Osmosis (RO) based Desalination Plant at a cost of Rs.231.34 Crore at Kattupalli Village near its Manali refinery complex. The Plant comprising an intake well is located at Bay of Bengal, 500 mts from the landfall point at Ennore. The seawater at 3300 m3/hr. is pumped from the pump house to the RO plant facilities comprising four trains situated at 3.5 KM from the landfall point at Kattupalli. The De-salination plant when fully operational would facilitate CPCL achieving self-sufficiency to meet the current water requirements of its Manali Refinery complex as also the requirements of Euro IV/Revamps/Resid Upgradation projects which are under various stages of implementation.

     CPCL’s Desalination Plant was inaugurated in July last year by the Hon'ble Dy. Chief Minister of Tamilnadu Shri M K Stalin in the presence of Hon'ble Union Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas Shri Murli Deora and Hon'ble Union Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas Shri Jitin Prasada as also several other Union Ministers of State and TN State Ministers.

     The pioneering success of CPCL enthused Hon'ble Union Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas Shri Murli Deora to champion a Sea Water Desalination Plant for Mumbai and has been pursuing it with the Maharashtra State Government to expedite setting it up for augmenting water supply to Mumbai and its vast suburbs.

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