The Mumbai Manmad Pipeline (MMPL) was one of the most ambitious projects undertaken by Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited.[1] The project commenced in mid-1998 and involved the laying of a 168 km long petroleum product pipeline[2] from Mumbai on the Arabian sea coast to Manmad, near Nashik, located in North-Eastern Maharashtra. Subsequently, by March 2007, the pipeline was extended from Manmad to Bijwasan near New Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport. The total length of the MMPL pipeline, reaching from Mumbai to the outskirts of New Delhi, is approximately 1,500 km.[3][4]

The MMBPL department of Bharat Petroleum is currently headed by Mr. G S Wankhede, who is the General Manager of the Operations. Below him in the hierarchy are Mr. N Manohar Rao and Mr. L R Jain.

The MMBPL department has set high standards in the field of product pipelines. The experience in laying the Mumbai-Manmad-Bijwasan pipeline is being utilised by Bharat Petroleum to lay a crude-oil pipeline from Vadinar on the West coast to Bina in Madhya Pradesh, where a new 6 MMTPA grassroot refinery is coming up. The success achieved by the MMPL department has made it almost certain that the pipeline department will become a "strategic business unit" or SBU of Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited in the near future.

The latest cutting edge technology is used for operations as well as maintenance works. Online monitoring of the status of the product and pipeline has been made possible by the use of SCADA (Supervision Control and Data Acquisition) Software. Advanced techniques are also employed in pigging operations. The department also conducts studies in various aspects of pipeline management, like minimizing interface, cathodic protection etc.

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