Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday, November 13, dedicated to the nation India's largest underground LPG storage cavern, at Bala in Mangaluru, Karnataka, as part of a ceremony in Bengaluru at which he inaugurated, dedicated and laid foundation stones for development projects worth more than Rs 15,600 crore, news agency IANS reported.

Source: IANS

Built at a cost of more than Rs 850 crore, the cavern can store 80,000 metric tonnes of liquefied petroleum gas, according to the Prime Minister's Office statement reported by Coastal Digest. That is about six lakh barrels, or roughly 60 million litres, of LPG held in rock deep underground, builder Megha Engineering & Infrastructures Ltd (MEIL) says.

80,000 MTLPG storage capacity
Rs 854 croreProject cost
60,000 MTVisakhapatnam cavern it surpasses

The cavern was built by MEIL for Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL) inside the premises of HPCL's existing LPG plant, Engineers India Ltd, which executed the project as consultant, said. It is only the second underground LPG rock cavern in India, after the 60,000-tonne facility at Visakhapatnam, and its floor sits about 141 metres below mean sea level, HPCL officials have said.

The facility will receive LPG imported through New Mangalore Port and dispatch it to the Mangaluru LPG bottling plant, to road and rail tankers at the import facility, and through cross-country pipelines running to Mysuru, Bengaluru and Hyderabad, according to HPCL's project description. Construction was completed in 2025 after the cavern passed its acceptance tests, industry reports said; Friday's ceremony was its formal dedication to the nation.

Why an underground cavern?

Storing LPG in a rock cavern deep underground keeps a large strategic buffer close to a major import port while using far less surface land than rows of above-ground tanks, and the surrounding rock and water pressure help contain the gas safely.

The dedication formed the petroleum-infrastructure centrepiece of the Prime Minister's Karnataka programme, alongside the Bengaluru Metro Pink Line opening and the flag-off of the Bengaluru-Mangaluru-Madgaon Vande Bharat Express. Sources: IANS report of the November 13 Bengaluru ceremony; Prime Minister's Office statement reported by Coastal Digest, November 11; MEIL and Engineers India project records.