Assam: NRL achieves milestone with longest HDD for crude oil pipeline in Subansiri

Guwahati: Numaligarh Refinery Limited (NRL) which is executing its mega project of laying a cross-country pipeline of 1,635 km from Paradip Port in Odisha to Numaligarh, marked the successful completion of one of the largest HDD globally as of date, for a 26-inch diameter pipe size.

“The pulling of the 26-inch diameter pipe started on February 12 and continued non-stop for around 60 hours till the entire 3.51 km long pipe string was pulled through, at the midnight of February 14 and marked the completion of one of the largest HDD globally as on date, for a 26-inch diameter pipe size,” an NRL official said.

“The pipeline passes through five states traversing numerous route crossings including all major rivers of East India, namely Ganges, Jia Bharali, Subansiri, Brahmaputra through a technique called Horizontal Directional Drilling (HDD) with intersection,” the official said.

“Subansiri River, which connects Lakhimpur in the North and Majuli in the South, is one of the of the most challenging HDD sites due to its complex 3510-meter-long profile length for a 26-inch diameter pipe,” he said.

The official said the remote site made it more challenging due to the non-accessibility of the area which remains flooded most of the year leaving a working window of four to five months from November to March. The executing agency had to construct a temporary bridge over the Lohit River en route for the movement of the heavy equipment and project accessories.

“Two giant rigs of capacity 500 MT were positioned on both sides of the river and are used for drillings, reaming and pulling activities,” he said.

The EPCM Consultant of the project is Engineers India Limited (EIL) and the executing agency is M/s Corrtech International Pvt Ltd (CIPL). Project Pipeline Head Pranab Jyoti Sarma, Section in Charge SK Hussain, EIL Construction Site in-charge SK Bhuyan along with the entire team were relentlessly involved under the guidance of CGM (Project) I/c GK Borah and managing director BJ Phukan in entire activities ensuring success of this critical job.

“With the completion of this HDD, NRL is now focussing on completing another two biggest HDDs in the forthcoming two to three months in Ganges and Brahmaputra, thereby, completing all major HDD crossings of its 1,635 km long Paradip Numaligarh Crude Oil Pipeline (PNCPL). NRL plans to accomplish construction and commissioning of the PNCPL Project by Mid-2025,” he added.

The refinery is also implementing its expansion plan from 3.0 MMTPA to 9.0 MMTPA, as part of the ‘Numaligarh Refinery Expansion Project (NREP)’.

The NREP project is the single largest Investment in the Northeast as part of the Central government’s ‘Hydrocarbon Vision 2030 for Northeast India’.