MT Mogra, the Suez Max tanker has become the 1000th crude oil tanker to berth at the Single Point Mooring facility of BPCL-Kochi Refinery, located 19.2 km from the coast of Puthuvypeen. The vessel carried approx 140 TMT of Basrah light crude from Iraq to the Kochi coast.

SPM is a modern facility to receive crude oil in large oil tankers such as the Suez Max and Very Large Crude Carriers. SPM has a floating buoy anchored to the seabed using anchor chains secured on piles. This buoy comprises floating hoses and sub-sea hoses for cargo transport. The oil tankers are moored to the buoy and crude oil is pumped through the hoses to the sub-sea pipeline running from the SPM to the in-shore tank farm in Puthuvypeen.

Approximately 109 million tonnes of crude from various countries has been received at SPM, which was introduced in the Kochi waters off the coast of Puthuvypeen in 2007 to enable crude oil receipt from very large crude carriers. Among the 1,000 tankers that have berthed here, a sizeable number comprised VLCC tankers also.

In many ways the SPM enabled BPCL Kochi Refinery to take up big ticket projects such as the Integrated Refinery Expansion Project, Prasad K Panicker, Executive Director (Kochi Refinery), said.