In a bid to ramp up the supply of medical oxygen across the country, the Petroleum and Explosives Safety Organisation (PESO) has permitted conversion of a part of India’s nitrogen and argon tankers to enable transportation of oxgyen.
The PESO directive will remove a major bottleneck in the transportation of liquid medical oxygen (LMO) to States and facilitate faster movement, the Ministry of Commerce and Industry said on Monday.
The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade in the Ministry has also convinced steel producers in the private and public sectors to reduce their safety stock of LMO maintained in storage tanks, from the usual 3.5 days to 0.5 days. Separately, the Bhilai Steel Plant is undertaking ‘a very short shutdown’ in its operations to enhance their liquid oxygen production by 15 metric tonnes (MT).
Steel producers produced 3,468.6 MT of LMO and supplied 3,131.84 MT to various States on April 25, and 2,894 tonnes on April 24. This is almost double the average 1500-1700 MT dispatched per day a week earlier.
“As on date, there are 765 nitrogen tankers with a capacity of 8,345 MT and 434 argon tankers with a capacity of 7,642 MT. Permission for converting a portion of them for carrying oxygen has been issued by Petroleum and Explosives Safety Organisation (PESO),” the Ministry said, adding that 1,172 tankers with a capacity of 15,900 MT are currently available for liquid medical oxygen.
