NEW DELHI - India hopes to forge partnerships with private players to build out its strategic petroleum reserves within the coming year, the head of Indian Strategic Petroleum Reserves Ltd (ISPRL) said on Monday.

India's government approved two strategic petroleum reserve (SPR) sites with a total capacity of 6.5 million tonnes in June.

H. Ahuja, the chief executive of ISPRL, said on Monday that ISPRL, a government-owned a special purpose vehicle, planned to get bids from investors for the second phase of the storage plan in six to nine months.

Ahuja was speaking on sidelines of the India Energy Forum by CERAWEEK.

(Reporting by Promit Mukherjee and Nidhi Verma; Writing by Sanjeev Miglani Editing by Euan Rocha) ((sanjeev.miglani@thomsonreuters.com; +91 11 49548038; Reuters Messaging: sanjeev.miglani@thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))