India-Nepal Ties: Nepal is ready to carry discussions with India on supplying aviation gas by the cross-border petroleum pipeline to Nepal, as officers from the 2 nations are scheduled to fulfill subsequent week in New Delhi, a senior Nepali official mentioned on Wednesday.
Nepal started transporting diesel through pipeline for the primary time in September 2019 following the completion of the Motihari Amlekhgunj cross-border petroleum pipeline. The nation additionally started importing petrol and kerosene by the pipeline in early 2025.
The fifth assembly of the Nepal–India Joint Working Group on Petroleum and Gasoline is scheduled for December 8, the place Nepal plans to debate the availability of Aviation Turbine Gas (ATF), utilized in plane, by the cross-border pipeline.
A Cupboard assembly on Monday accredited the delegation to be despatched to New Delhi for the talks. “We’re going to suggest ATF provide to Nepal by the pipeline as soon as the continuing development of the petroleum pipeline from Amlekhgunj to Lothar in Chitwan district is accomplished,” mentioned Shivaram Pokharel, Joint Secretary on the Ministry of Business, Commerce, and Provides, who’s main the Nepali delegation.
The mission is being undertaken with Indian help, whereas Nepal Oil Company (NOC) plans to develop an ATF depot at Lothar with its personal assets. At the moment, NOC is implementing the pipeline extension mission with Indian help.
Below this section, which started in early August this yr, the Motihari–Amlekhgunj pipeline is being prolonged to Lothar. Pokharel mentioned that when the prolonged pipeline and ATF depot are accomplished, Nepal goals to move ATF through pipeline to Lothar.
“We’ll provoke dialogue on this matter on the upcoming assembly,” he mentioned. As a consequence of insufficient house on the Amlekhgunj depot in Bara district, the ATF depot has been deliberate for Lothar, he added. In accordance with him, the identical pipeline can be utilized to move diesel, petrol, kerosene, and ATF.
To forestall adulteration amongst totally different petroleum merchandise, a essential scientific course of has been adopted to make sure that one sort of gas doesn’t contaminate one other when provided sequentially.
Through the former Nepali Prime Minister’s go to to India in Might June 2023, the 2 sides signed a memorandum of understanding on establishing petroleum provide infrastructure between Siliguri and Jhapa, extending the present pipeline from Amlekhgunj to Lothar, and establishing two greenfield terminals in Chitwan and Jhapa.
When the cross border pipeline was accomplished in 2019, it turned the primary of its type in South Asia. In the meantime, a personal firm in Nepal began importing Liquefied Pure Gasoline (LNG) from the nation simply over per week in the past.
Yogya Holding, a subsidiary of SG Group, which has been bottling and supplying liquefied petroleum fuel, began importing LNG, a first-ever import of such fuel from the Indian Oil Company.
The 2 sides had signed an settlement for the availability of LNG early this yr. In a current social media submit, Indian Minister for Petroleum and Pure Gasoline Hardeep Singh Puri termed the primary ever provide of LNG to Nepal as a “milestone operation”, including that it displays India’s unwavering dedication to advancing regional vitality safety.
He mentioned Indian Oil Company’s graduation of the first-ever export of LNG to Nepal marked a big step in driving cleaner vitality and deepening regional partnership.