IOC, HPCL, BPCL plan country’s biggest oil refinery
New Delhi 14-Jan-2016
Indian Oil Corp, HPCL and BPCL are planning to jointly build India’s biggest refinery on the west coast, IOC Director (Refineries) Sanjiv Singh said on Wednesday.
“We (at IOC) have been looking at west coast for a refinery as catering to customers in west and south was difficult with our refineries mostly in the north. HPCL has also been looking at a bigger refinery because of constraints it faces at the Mumbai unit,” he said.
So now, IOC, Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd and Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd will jointly set up a “very large refinery” at a suitable location on the west coast, he said.
“The concept has gone beyond thinking stage and is now under conception,” he said.
Asked about the size of the refinery, he said, “It will be way bigger than 15 million tonnes.”
Fifteen million tonnes a year is the biggest refinery any public sector unit has set up in one stage. IOC recently started its 15 million tonnes unit at Paradip in Odisha.
Reliance Industries holds the distinction of building the biggest refinery in India till now. It built its first refinery at Jamnagar in Gujarat with a capacity of 27 million tonnes, which was subsequently expanded to 33 million tonnes.
It has built another unit adjacent to it for exports, with a capacity of 29 million tonnes.
The refinery being planned by the state-owned firms will be “bigger than that,” he said, adding that the refinery will cost Rs 2,500 crore per million tonnes.
“The size, investment and configuration are all under works,” he said.
The refinery will also be accompanied by a petrochemical complex.
Being on the west coast will provide the unit a natural advantage of easily sourcing crude oil from the Middle East and Africa, he said. Also, moving products to consumption heartland will not be difficult.
IOC has six refineries with a total capacity of 54.20 million tonnes. It also has subsidiary refineries with 11.50 million tonnes capacity.
The 15 million tonnes refinery at Paradip will achieve “continuous production by month end,” he said. This will take IOC’s refining capacity to 80.7 million tonnes.
IOC to invest Rs 21k cr for upgradation
State-owned Indian Oil Corp (IOC) will invest Rs 21,000 crore in upgrading six refineries to produce Euro-VI grade petrol and diesel by April 2020, its Director (Refineries) Sanjiv Singh said on Wednesday. The investment on upgradation will raise the production cost of petrol by Rs 1.40 per litre and diesel by Rs 0.63. IOC, the nation's largest oil firm, is investing Rs 7,000 crore in upgrading fuel quality from Bharat Stage-III, equivalent to Euro-III emission norm, to BS-IV by next year, he said. Another, Rs 13,000-14,000 crore will be invested in six units to upgrade fuel quality straight to BS-VI or Euro-VI, he added.
In a bid to cut vehicular pollution, the government has decided to leapfrog from Euro-IV emission standards for automobiles as well as fuel to stricter Euro-VI by April 1, 2020. All PSU refineries need to invest Rs 28,750 crore for upgrading quality of fuel they produce. "It is extremely challenging task (to produce Euro-VI fuel by 2020) but we will meet it. We are fairly confident will meet it," he said. Singh said these investment does not include the money needed for upgrading IOC's newly built 15 million tonnes refinery at Paradip in Odisha. "We haven't done the numbers yet, but it certainly will be much lower than Rs 4,000 crore reported in certain media," he said. Asked if the company will pass on the increased cost to customers, he said it is "upto now the capital investment in upgrade of fuel quality to BS-III and BS-IV is not being passed on to consumers. But definitely my cost of production will go up."
