industry

Oil, steel industry setting up more than 10,000 oxygenated beds to fight second Covid wave


From augmenting the oxygen production and supply to establishing Covid care facilities across the country, the oil and steel industry has been helping out in the war against Covid. As per a report by these two ministries, they together account for producing and supplying around 6,650 MT of medical oxygen out of the daily allocation of 10,000 MT in India. In addition, the 13 oil PSUs are establishing more than 100 oxygen generation plants at different hospitals across the country.

The information was shared by Dharmendra Pradhan, union minister for steel and petroleum, in a series of social media posts.

“Under the leadership of PM Narendra Modi ji, the steel and petroleum industry have rallied together and are making every effort to help India combat the second wave of the Covid19 pandemic better and stronger,” Pradhan wrote.

With demand for medical oxygen growing every day, the public and private sector steel plants have ramped up their daily production capacities. The production was 538 MT per day on April 1 which has now been increased to 4,278 MT on May 12. The steel plants also have a storage of 25,000 MT of oxygen currently which is supplied to states as per demand.

The oil PSUs are playing a major role in offering logistical support in carrying the oxygen to different states. The PSUs have contracted 207 ISO tankers with a capacity of 4214 MT to augment the last mile deliveries of oxygen. These companies have also placed orders for high-capacity oxygen compressors for filling oxygen cylinders. Currently, all these tankers are being used to supply oxygen to 12 states.

Petroleum PSUs have also tied up with Singapore and Gulf countries to import 13,740 MT of liquid oxygen. Work is also going on to establish captive oxygen generation plants at 93 locations across the country by oil companies.

Pradhan said ONGC is procuring one lakh oxygen concentrators. The company has already placed orders for 52,000 concentrators and 4,800 concentrators have reached.

Apart from oxygen supply, these companies are playing a big role in setting up more than 10,000 hospital beds across the country. Pradhan on Sunday was in Panipat to launch a 500-bed covid care hospital which has been set up with the help of IOCL. Similar facilities have come up in Bina, Madhya Pradesh (1,000 beds), Kochi (1,000 beds), Chennai (200 beds) and Bathinda (100 beds) with the help of oil PSUs.



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