The state government gave the go-ahead on Wednesday evening after hecticnegotiations with the ministry of petroleum and natural gas. The crude willbe supplied to IOC's terminals which would have, otherwise, seen a severedepletion of stocks. Investigations into the cause of the spill will becarried out independently by the state authorities.

The lifting of the embargo on crude unloading by the tankers has come as abig relief since a shortage could have caused problems of productavailability. A fourth tanker carrying around 2.8 lakh tonnes of Nigeriansweet crude is expected to reach the Vadinar area shortly. Of the threetankers that have begun unloading operations, two account for 2.49 lakhtonnes of Kuwait crude and the third for around 36,000 tonnes of Pannacrude. Crude unloading operations were suspended immediately after the oilspill in which there were allegations of IOC's involvement in the affair.

The PSU stoutly denied this maintaining that there was no leak in the crudepipeline. By this time, the tankers had reached the coast but had to waittill there was a reprieve from the authorities. The spill had caused thedeaths of some dolphins and sea turtles and happened at a time ofunrelenting protests from environmentalists against the commissioning of newpipelines and refineries. This pertained especially to the sensitive marinenational park area. Gujarat alone will see nearly 45 million tonnes ofadditional refining capacity during the next two years. Reliance Petroleumhas already commissioned its 27 million tonne Jamnagar refinery while Essaris getting ready with its 12 million tonne facility.IOC, meanwhile, has announced that it is going ahead with the expansion ofits Koyali refinery from 12 million tonnes to 18 million tonnes.Apart fromthis, two significant product lines have been planned in the region--onefrom Vadinar to Kandla stretching across 113 kilometres and a long networkfrom RPL's refinery in Jamnagar to Gwalior. The apprehension in industrycircles is that planning further infrastructure in the state could faceobstacles in the form of protests from environmentalists especially in thebackdrop of the oil spill.

Bina refinery's fate uncertain
The biggest worry going around in oil circles is the fate of the Binarefinery consequent to the oil spill controversy. The six million tonneproject, promoted by Bharat Petroleum Corporation and the Oman Oil Company,has just not taken off since it was given the go-ahead five years ago. Theobstacle lies in securing environment clearance for a section of thepipeline that apparently goes through a sensitive marine life zone. The costof the project has already gone up by around Rs 2,500 crore due to the delay.