The Nepal Oil Corporation (NOC) has said bringing petroleum products by pipeline has saved the state oil monopoly over Rs 1 billion.
"There were thefts earlier. We have saved Rs 2 per liter while bringing it by the pipeline," NOC Spokesperson Binit Mani Upadhyaya said as the NOC marked a year of bringing oil by the pipeline on Wednesday.
He revealed that the country imported 534,103,000 liters in the past one year and there was a saving of Rs 1,068,206,000 at the rate of Rs 2 every liter.
Chief of the Amlekhgunj Depot of NOC Bharat Regmi said even the quantity of import has increased in the last year.
The depots in Bhairahawa, Amlekhgunj and Biratnagar earlier used to separately bring petroleum products in tankers themselves. The oil for the whole country now comes to Amlekhgunj through the pipeline. Regmi said bringing oil through the pipeline instead of tankers also reduces pollution due to lack of emission by the tankers.
Prime ministers (PM) of Nepal and India had inaugurated the Motihari-Amlekhgunj petroleum pipeline from their respective residences last year. PM KP Sharma Oli and his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi had inaugurated the pipeline by simultaneously pushing the buttons from Kathmandu and New Delhi respectively. While the button pushed by Modi had sent diesel from Motihari, that pushed by Oli received it.
The pipeline can operate round the clock and can bring up to 294 kiloliters of petroleum products per hour.
