Strategic Petroleum Reserves: Does India Have Enough? A Reality Check

By Amulya Charan | April 11, 2026

PM Modi says India holds 53 lakh metric tonnes of strategic reserves. Here’s what that number actually means — and what it doesn’t tell you.

In March 2026, with West Asia on fire and the Strait of Hormuz shut for the first time in living memory, Prime Minister Modi stood before the Lok Sabha and offered a number meant to calm nerves: India holds a strategic petroleum reserve of over 53 lakh metric tonnes. More is coming — 65 lakh metric tonnes in the pipeline. We import from 41 countries now, not 27. Our ethanol blending has hit 20%. The subtext was unmistakable. We saw this coming. We’re ready.

Are we, though?

That 53 lakh figure is not invented. But it is doing more reassuring than it should. Peel it apart, and you find a reserve system that is partially empty, expansion plans that have barely moved in five years, and — most critically — a near-total absence of strategic reserves for the one fuel that actually touched Indian kitchens during this crisis: LPG.

What’s Actually in the Caverns?

The 53 lakh metric tonnes — 5.3 million metric tonnes — is the capacity of India’s three underground rock caverns, built over a decade under Phase I of the SPR programme. Visakhapatnam holds up to 1.33 MMT. Mangalore, 1.5 MMT. Padur, the largest, 2.5 MMT.

Capacity, though, is ceiling. Not contents.

Minister of State for Petroleum Suresh Gopi told Parliament in a written reply this March that the three facilities currently hold about 3.37 MMT of crude. That’s 63% full. The PM quoted what the caverns can hold. The minister, in fine print, revealed what they do hold.

The gap has reasons. India has been experimenting with a commercialisation model — leasing SPR space to foreign oil firms and trading houses under PPP arrangements. It keeps crude cycling and generates some revenue, but the trade-off is that the government doesn’t sit on the full stockpile at any given moment. Back in 2020, when oil prices cratered, India moved fast and filled reserves on the cheap. That window closed. At today’s war-inflated prices, topping up is a very different conversation.

So what does 3.37 MMT actually buy? At India’s current consumption — roughly 5.7 to 6 million barrels a day, per OPEC’s own 2026 projections — it works out to about nine or ten days. That’s the government-controlled emergency cushion. Not months. Not even a fortnight. Nine days.

The 60-Day Comfort Blanket

Now, the government doesn’t present it quite that starkly. Because India’s oil marketing companies — IOC, BPCL, HPCL — carry their own commercial inventories, which add around 64.5 days of crude cover. Fold those in with the SPR, and the official line is that India has 60 to 74 days of total petroleum stock.

That sounds workable. It isn’t wrong. But it’s misleading if you don’t understand what commercial inventory actually is. It’s not oil sitting in a vault waiting for an emergency. It’s oil moving — through refineries, down pipelines, into tankers and trucks, out to petrol pumps. It’s the circulatory system of the economy. Pull from it aggressively and you don’t tap a reserve; you cause a stroke.

The strategic reserve exists precisely so you don’t have to do that. It’s the buffer you can release without crippling the supply chain. And that buffer — the real one, the one under ISPRL’s lock and key — covers ten days. Full stop.

The Global Yardstick

The International Energy Agency tells its member nations to hold 90 days of net import cover. India’s own Parliamentary Standing Committee on Petroleum said the same thing in its March 2026 report, essentially admitting the current position isn’t adequate.

Look at the numbers side by side and the picture is uncomfortable:

	India	IEA Benchmark	Japan	United States
Strategic crude reserve (days)	~9–10	90	~140	~300+
Total petroleum cover (incl. commercial)	~60–74	90	200+	600+
Strategic LPG reserve (days)	~2–5	—	Significant	Significant
Crude import dependence	~87%	—	~97%	Net exporter

Japan is the one to watch here. It imports a higher share of its crude than India does — nearly everything. Yet it holds reserves that dwarf ours, many times over. That didn’t happen by accident. It took decades of treating storage infrastructure the way most countries treat defence spending: non-negotiable, not subject to the whims of annual budget cycles. India has not done this.

Five Years, Nothing Built

In 2021, the Modi government approved Phase II: a major new facility at Chandikhol in Odisha (4 MMT), an expansion of Padur, and on the drawing board, India’s first salt cavern at Bikaner in Rajasthan, plus additions at Mangalore and a greenfield site at Bina. On paper, it would more than double India’s strategic storage.

On the ground, five years later, Chandikhol and Padur expansion remain in early stages. Land acquisition problems. Bureaucratic tangles. The parliamentary committee documented all of it.

None of this should shock anyone who followed Phase I. Those caverns were approved in the mid-2000s. They came online between 2015 and 2018. Over a decade from yes to oil-in-the-ground. But knowing the pattern makes it worse, not better. India’s oil consumption keeps climbing — 5.3 million barrels a day in 2023, nearly 6 million by 2026 — while the emergency stockpile sits frozen. Every year of delay, the denominator grows and the days-of-cover ratio quietly shrinks.

The Blind Spot That Hit Hardest: LPG

Everything above is about crude oil. Important, yes — but somewhat abstract for a household in Lakhimpur Kheri or a restaurant owner in Bengaluru. What hit them was not a crude oil shortage. It was an LPG crisis.

Over 330 million Indian households cook on LPG. That number has ballooned — consumption went from 21.6 million tonnes in FY17 to 31.3 million tonnes in FY25, powered largely by the Ujjwala Yojana, one of the Modi government’s signature welfare achievements. More than 100 million new connections. A genuine transformation in how India’s poor cook.

But nobody built the strategic reserve to match.

India’s total deep-storage LPG capacity — the HPCL Mangalore cavern commissioned in late 2025 and an older Visakhapatnam facility — adds up to roughly 140,000 metric tonnes. Daily LPG demand runs around 85,000 tonnes. Do the maths. That’s somewhere between two and five days of strategic buffer, depending on how generously you count pipeline and bottling-plant inventories.

Two to five days. For the cooking fuel of 330 million families. In a country that imports 60% of its LPG and routes 90% of those imports through the Strait of Hormuz.

When Iran shut that strait in late February, the consequences arrived in kitchens within the week. Restaurants closed. Cylinders showed up on the black market at ₹2,000–3,000, double or triple the listed price. Daily bookings surged from 55.7 lakh to nearly 89 lakh — a 60% panic spike. The government invoked the Essential Commodities Act, capped booking frequency at 25 days in cities and 45 in rural areas, and ordered refineries to max out LPG production. These were crisis measures. The kind you resort to when there is no cushion left.

Why does India have a crude reserve but essentially no LPG reserve? The technical answer is that LPG needs pressurised or cryogenic storage — expensive, complex, nothing like the cheap rock caverns that hold crude. The Mangalore LPG cavern cost ₹854 crore for a mere 80,000 tonnes. But the Takshashila Institution has costed out a 10-day national LPG buffer at about ₹9,600 crore. That’s real money, but against an annual petroleum import bill in the lakhs of crores, it’s not unthinkable. The truth is simpler and more damning: LPG just never got the same strategic attention as crude. Nobody planned for a Hormuz closure. And now here we are.

What Comes Next

The crisis has forced conversations that a hundred policy papers couldn’t. Three things need to happen, and all three need to happen as if they actually matter.

First, Phase II can’t keep drifting. Chandikhol, Padur, Bikaner — these projects need to be pulled out of the normal capital-expenditure pipeline and treated like what they are: national security infrastructure. Another decade of land acquisition hearings is another decade of exposure.

Second, a strategic LPG reserve isn’t optional anymore. It doesn’t need to cover 90 days. Even 10 to 15 days would have fundamentally changed the government’s hand in March 2026. Fewer rationing orders. Less panic. Less black-market profiteering. The cost is in the thousands of crores, not the lakhs. For a programme of this consequence, that is affordable.

Third — and this is the longer arc — India has to break the single-fuel, single-chokepoint dependency for cooking energy. Piped natural gas can absorb some demand in cities. Electric induction cooking is already surging — sales spiked during the crisis, proof that households will switch the moment reliability breaks down. Compressed biogas has potential at scale. None of these replace LPG overnight. But a diversified cooking-energy mix means the next Hormuz closure doesn’t reach 330 million stoves within a week.

Where This Leaves Us

The PM’s 53 lakh metric tonnes is a real number. It is also a ceiling, not a fill level. The oil actually sitting in India’s strategic caverns covers about ten days of demand. Commercial stocks push the total buffer to 60–74 days — decent, but short of the 90-day benchmark that India’s own Parliament has recommended.

And then there is LPG. Two to five days of strategic cover for the fuel that keeps India’s kitchens running. That’s the number the PM didn’t mention. It is, by a wide margin, the most consequential gap in India’s energy security today.

The Hormuz crisis did not create these weaknesses. It simply made them visible — to Parliament, to the press, and to every family that stood in line for a cylinder. Whether that visibility turns into concrete and steel, or just more committee reports, will determine how the next disruption plays out. History says: don’t hold your breath. But the scale of what just happened may, for once, make the difference.

References

1. PM Modi’s Lok Sabha Statement (March 2026) — “Present petroleum reserves at 53 lakh metric tonnes, plans for another 65 lakh MT: PM Modi.” ProKerala, March 2026. https://www.prokerala.com/news/articles/a1742477.html
2. Minister of State Suresh Gopi’s Written Statement to Parliament (March 2026) — India’s SPR capacity of 5.33 MMT across three caverns, current fill level of 3.37 MMT. Cited in: “India’s strategic oil reserves tell a tale of structural constraints & stalled expansion.” ThePrint, March 2026. https://theprint.in/economy/indias-strategic-oil-reserves-tell-a-tale-of-structural-constraints-stalled-expansion-heres-why/2889144/
3. Parliamentary Standing Committee on Petroleum and Natural Gas (March 2026) — Report urging India to increase crude reserves to 90 days; findings on Phase II delays at Chandikhol and Padur. Cited in: ThePrint (same as above).
4. OPEC Monthly Oil Market Report — India’s crude oil demand projected at 5.72 million bpd in 2025 and 5.97 million bpd in 2026. Cited in: “India’s crude oil demand projected to hit near 6 million barrels per day in 2026.” Business Standard, February 2026. https://www.business-standard.com/markets/capital-market-news/india-s-crude-oil-demand-projected-to-hit-near-6-million-barrels-per-day-in-2026-125061700651_1.html
5. India Oil Reserves, Production and Consumption Statistics — India consumes approximately 5.6 million barrels per day (2024 data); imports ~87% of crude requirement. Worldometer. https://www.worldometers.info/oil/india-oil/
6. India Oil & Gas Sector Overview — LPG consumption of 31.3 MT in FY25; domestic production of ~13 MT; crude oil imports of 242.4 MT in FY25; refining capacity of 258.1 MMTPA. India Brand Equity Foundation (IBEF). https://www.ibef.org/industry/oil-gas-india
7. India’s LPG Crisis 2026: Causes, Impact & What Lies Ahead — LPG strategic storage of ~140,000 tonnes (~5 days of demand); domestic LPG production of 1.158 MT/month vs. imports of 2.192 MT/month (January 2026); black market pricing; booking spike data. VCNow, March 2026. https://learn.vcnow.in/india-lpg-crisis-2026/
8. Policy Responses to India’s LPG Supply Crisis — Cost estimate of ₹9,600 crore for a 10-day LPG buffer; HPCL Mangalore cavern cost of ₹854 crore for 80 TMT; 60% import dependence; 90% Hormuz transit share; 332.1 million active LPG connections. Takshashila Institution, March 2026. https://takshashila.org.in/content/publications/20260318-Policy-Responses-to-India-LPG-Supply-Crisis.html
9. Explained: Why India faces LPG shortage amid ongoing West Asia war — Total LPG storage capacity of ~1.9 MT (~22 days including bottling plants); 60% import dependence; Essential Commodities Act invocation. Business Standard, March 2026. https://www.business-standard.com/markets/commodities/india-lpg-shortage-west-asia-war-hormuz-shipping-disruption-126031100779_1.html
10. Why India built crude reserves but not LPG buffers despite demand surge — LPG consumption growth from 21.6 MT (FY17) to 31.3 MT (FY25); 330 million connections including 105 million PMUY; technical challenges of LPG storage. Business Standard, March 2026. https://www.business-standard.com/economy/news/india-lpg-crisis-reserves-crude-strategic-buffer-demand-surge-126031800951_1.html
11. Statement by Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri in Parliament — LPG Control Order of 8 March 2026; 28% increase in LPG production through refinery directives; 25-day urban and 45-day rural booking gaps; tiered fuel supply directives. Press Information Bureau, Government of India, March 2026. https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2239021
12. One Narrow Strait, Millions of Cylinders: India’s LPG Crisis — 215 bottling plants; 25,600 distributors; ~18 days of tankage cover; 54% of normal LPG availability exposed to Hormuz disruption; induction stove demand surge. Observer Research Foundation (ORF), March 2026. https://www.orfonline.org/expert-speak/one-narrow-strait-millions-of-cylinders-india-s-lpg-crisis
13. Gulf wars & India’s oil security: How 4 govts built the strategic oil reserves — History of SPR programme from Vajpayee government to Modi government; Phase I operational timeline; 2020 oil price crash purchases. Business Today, April 2026. https://www.businesstoday.in/india/story/gulf-wars-indias-oil-security-how-4-govts-built-the-strategic-oil-reserves-a-timeline-524913-2026-04-09
14. Government Fact-Check on Fuel Reserves — Government claim of ~60 days petroleum stock cover, total capacity up to 74 days including commercial and strategic reserves; imports from 41 countries. PIB Fact Check / Organiser, March 2026. https://organiser.org/2026/03/29/346210/bharat/no-fuel-crisis-in-india-govt-debunks-5-10-days-oil-reserve-claim-assures-60-day-supply-cover/
15. U.S. Energy Information Administration — India Country Analysis — India’s petroleum production at 939,000 bpd (2023); total petroleum storage capacity at 74 days (end of 2023); IEA 90-day recommendation; planned SPR expansion. EIA, February 2025. https://www.eia.gov/international/content/analysis/countries_long/india/
16. Strategic Petroleum Reserve (India) — Phase II proposals including Chandikhole and Bikaner; proposed total capacity of 11.83 MMT. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Petroleum_Reserve_(India)

Amulya Charan writes on energy systems, infrastructure economics, and development policy at amulyacharan.com. This analysis draws on reporting from Business Standard, ThePrint, Business Today, and the Press Information Bureau, and on policy research from the Takshashila Institution and the Observer Research Foundation.