New Delhi, Feb 10 (IANS): The construction of India's strategic petroleum storage in Karnataka's Mangaluru with the assistance of the UAE's Abu Dhabi National Oil Company is proceeding on schedule and will be completed soon, the government said on Wednesday.

According to an Indian petroleum ministry release here, this was mentioned by Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan in his meeting here with United Arab Emirates Energy Minister Suhail Mohammed Al Mazrouei, ahead of the India visit of Abu Dhabi's Crown Prince, Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

"Pradhan expressed happiness that Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) was working with Indian Strategic Petroleum Reserve Ltd. (ISPRL) on the strategic reserve project in Mangalore (Mangaluru). He conveyed that the project was on track and will be concluded soon," an official statement here said following the meeting.

India, which imports nearly 80 percent of its crude oil needs, is building underground storages at Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh and Mangaluru and Padur in Karnataka to store about 5.33 million tonnes of crude oil to guard against global price surges and supply disruptions.

Some months after taking charge of the petroleum ministry in 2014, Pradhan had informed parliament that ADNOC and Kuwait Petroleum Corp had shown interest in hiring a part of India's strategic oil storage.

The storages at Visakhapatnam, Mangaluru and Padur will be enough to meet the country's oil requirement of about 10 days.

At Wednesday's meeting, Pradhan said state-run Indian explorers are interested in acquiring producing assets participatiing in the prospective exploration rounds in UAE, the statement said.

"He (Pradhan) also conveyed that Indian companies are interested in acquiring a stake in Abu Dhabi Company for Onshore Petroleum Operations (ADCO) for onshore oil operations," it said.

Briefing the UAE minister on various state-run projects in India's hydrocarbon sector, Pradhan "sought investments from UAE in these important projects which were at various levels of maturity and development, and required investment for the next 4 months to 4 years along with equity participation", the statement added.

Declaring that India was trying to import more crude from UAE, Pradhan sought favourable terms ffor crude oil and natural gas imports from the Gulf country, it added.