New Delhi, June 04: India will explore the possibility of building strategic oil reserves in cooperation with the United States to meet contingency requirements like disruption of supplies. "They (US) have invited me to visit the strategic reserves maintained by them at Bryan Mount near Houston on June 13 to study the aspects of developing and maintaining the critical reserves of crude oil. Indo-US cooperation (in building the reserves) will be explored," Petroleum Minister Ram Naik told reporters here.

Naik, who is leaving on Tuesday night for road shows in London, Calgary (Canada) and Houston (US) for attracting investments in oil exploration, said India is planning to build 45 days strategic crude oil reserves. In the first phase, 15 days’ storage capacity is being contemplated at an estimated cost of Rs 1,250 crore by 2006.
The capital cost of building 45 days’ reserves would be Rs 4,350 crore and annual maintenance cost would be Rs 1,800 crore. Besides, cost of material (crude oil) is estimated at Rs 15,600 crore, he said.
"Now we have to put in place a workable plan for building the reserves. My visit to Houston is a step in that direction," he said, adding that state-run Engineers India Ltd (EIL) had done some preliminary study for building 15 days’ strategic reserves. Bureau Report