Motihari-Amlekhgunj pipeline is a long trans-border petrolium pipeline between Amlekhgunj Oil Depot in Parsa of Nepal and

Motihari Motihari is the headquarters of East Champaran district in the Indian States and territories of India, state of Bihar. It is located District entry point and New City 40.09 kilometres Northeast Mehsi. north of the state capital Patna. Geograp ...

of India. This pipeline transports petroleum from

Indian Oil Corporation Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL; d/b/a IndianOil) is a central public sector undertaking under the ownership of the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, Government of India. It is headquartered in New Delhi. It is a public sector unde ...

(IOC) to

Nepal Oil Corporation Nepal Oil Corporation Limited (NOC) ( ne, नेपाल आयल निगम लिमिटेड) is a monopoly state owned trading enterprise of Nepal that imports, stores and distributes various petroleum products in the country. In Nepa ...

(NOC). It is also the first ever trans-national pipeline in the

Indian subcontinent The Indian subcontinent is a list of the physiographic regions of the world, physiographical region in United Nations geoscheme for Asia#Southern Asia, Southern Asia. It is situated on the Indian Plate, projecting southwards into the Indian O ...

. It has an annual capacity of two million metric tonn.

History

The pipeline was first proposed in 1996. An agreement was reached between the NOC and IOC in 2004. The project finally was set for construction after the visit of Indian prime minister

Narendra Modi Narendra Damodardas Modi (; born 17 September 1950) is an Indian politician serving as the 14th and current Prime Minister of India since 2014. Modi was the Chief Minister of Gujarat from 2001 to 2014 and is the Member of Parliament from ...

to Kathmandu in 2014. Both governments inked an agreement to execute the project in August 2015. However, the project construction was delayed due to the 2015 earthquake in Nepal and supply obstruction along the southern border. The project construction works finally began in April 2018 and were completed in April 2020. The pipeline was jointly inaugurated by the Prime ministers of India and Nepal on 10 September 2019. The pipeline displaces the need to carry petroleum products from India to Nepal by tankers that was done since 1973. The pipeline is expected to save NPR 2 billion annually on transportation. The project was constructed in 15 months, though the actual duration allocated was 30 months.

Features of pipeline

* of the pipeline lies in Indian territory (from Raxaul to Motihari) and the in Nepal from Raxaul to Amlekhgunj *About 6,500 large trees and about 4,000 small trees were cut off in the Parsa National Park area for the construction of the pipeline.

References

India–Nepal relations Pipeline transport Pipelines in Nepal Oil pipelines in India 2019 establishments in India 2019 establishments in Nepal Energy infrastructure completed in 2020 {{Pipeline-stub