Saudi to ship 80 MT oxygen to India

Dubai: Saudi Arabia is shipping 80 metric tonnes of liquid oxygen to India as the country is running low on supplies due to an unprecedented spike in coronavirus cases. The supply shipment is being undertaken in cooperation with the Adani group and Linde company.

"Embassy of India is proud to partner with Adani group and M/s Linde in shipping much-needed 80MT liquid oxygen to India. Our heartfelt thanks to the Ministry of Health Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for all their help, support, and cooperation," the Indian mission in Riyadh tweeted.

"Thank you @IndianEmbRiyadh Indeed, actions speak louder than words. We are on an urgent mission to secure oxygen supplies from across the world. This first shipment of 4 ISO cryogenic tanks with 80 tons of liquid oxygen is now on its way from Dammam to Mundra," Adani Group Chairman Gautam Adani said in a tweet.

India is struggling with a second wave of the pandemic with more than 3,00,000 daily new coronavirus cases being reported in the past few days, and hospitals in several states are reeling under a shortage of medical oxygen and beds. To combat the growing demand for oxygen in the country, India has reached out to various countries to procure containers and oxygen cylinders under operation ''Oxygen Maitri''.

The Indian Air Force on Saturday brought four cryogenic tanks, to be used for transporting oxygen, from Singapore.

The containers were airlifted from Singapore by C17 heavy-lift aircraft of the IAF.

The aircraft "with 4 cryogenic containers for storage of liquid O2 from Singapore landed at Panagarh airbase" in West Bengal on Saturday, a home ministry spokesperson tweeted. The IAF was also transporting essential medicines as well as equipment required by the designated COVID-19 hospitals in various parts of the country.