However, the management of the petroleum monopoly, that took a series of controversial decisions of late, has taken evasive action to dodge possible criticism. It has ´persuaded´ senior officials of Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) to recommend the need to revise the depot loss limit upward to make it ´scientific´, said a senior NOC official.
As part of the plan, an IOC team including its Commercial Director and Senior Operations Manager has arrived in the country. They visited NOC´s depots at Tribhuvan International Airport and Amlekhgunj over the last couple of days to recommend new limits.
“There is pressure within the corporation to increase the acceptable loss limit. The management, hence, requested the IOC team to recommend upward revision of loss limits so that it could patch up relations with staff that have soured over inability to distribute bonus,” the source told Republica.
Unfortunately, while seeking favors from IOC officials, the NOC management has decided to leave alone real loopholes existing at the operational level such as faulty calibration of oil tankers and temperature manipulation by IOC staff in collusion with tanker drivers -- something that has been costing the country dear.
What is calibration, temperature manipulation?
Calibration is measurement of the height of oil inside each chamber of a transporting tanker. The calibrated height certifies that a chamber with fuel up to a given mark contains 3,000 liters or 4,000 liters as the case may be. Tankers have three to five chambers, depending upon their size. As neither IOC´s Raxual depot nor NOC depots are automated, staff rely heavily on calibration to determine the volume of fuel loaded and delivered. Thus, any error in calibration results in over or under supply of fuel.
“In our case, wrong calibration is causing us to receive less fuel than what we are paying for,” said a knowledgeable source.
Given the sensitivity of error, IOC does not recognize calibration done in Nepal and requires Nepali operators to calibrate their tankers at the Indian Bureau of Standards office. But in recent years the office has permitted lower level staff at the Raxaul depot to do the calibrating.
“The problem apparently surfaced when IOC staff started to calibrate our tankers,” said the official, adding that NOC staff came to know of the state of affairs about five years ago when they forced some tanker operators to recalibrate their vehicles in their presence.
During the recalibration, staffers found some takers containing up to 100 liters less fuel than what the calibration suggested. Interestingly, such error was found in almost all the tankers. “Our estimates was that the error was allowing IOC staff to get away with loading on average 50 liters less fuel than mentioned on paper,” said the official.
As a serious case of under-delivery was thus disclosed, NOC staff demanded with management to take the matter up with IOC and rectify the situation. They had also sought recalibration of all tankers under strict supervision by NOC staff.
However, the issue never featured at NOC-IOC bilateral talks. As the oil thus saved benefits Indian depot staff, NOC brass fear that bringing up the matter could anger the depot staff, thereby affecting supplies.
Likewise, under the practice of temperature manipulation, which mainly benefits tanker drivers, IOC depot staff mark up by 1 to 3 degrees Celcius the temperature mentioned in the dispatch document. Each degree change in temperature leads to a change in volume of up to 17 liters in a tanker carrying 16,000 liters of petrol.
As the volume of fuel shrinks with a drop in temperature, a higher temperture difference between loading and unloading points allows drivers to deliver less fuel and enjoy handsome gains, with the loss going into the accounts of the NOC depot.
"Even with a variation of just one degree Celcius, tanker drivers enjoy a gain of 7,500 liters in a day," said the source, citing that around 150 tankers ferry fuel from Raxaul daily.
Consumers bear brunt
Officials said that the problems of calibration error and temperature manipulation are to be noted mainly at depots in Bihar. If these loopholes are plugged, they claim that NOC depot loss will decline around 20 percent.
“However, instead of getting IOC to correct the situation, NOC management has chosen to drop the issue and revise the loss limit upward,” said the source. Unfortunately, the cost of such leakages is ultimately transferred to consumers and there is no regulatory authority to force NOC to correct its ways.
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