Chief Minister of Haryana and Union Minister for Petroleum & Natural Gas and Steel jointly lay foundation stone for IndianOil’s Technology Development & Deployment Centre at Faridabad
New Delhi 29-Jun-2020
Shri Manohar Lal, Hon'ble Chief Minister, Haryana and Shri Dharmendra Pradhan, Hon'ble Union Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas jointly laid the foundation stone for Indian Oil Corporation's (IndianOil) state-of-the-art Technology Development & Deployment Centre as its second R&D Campus at IMT, Sector-67, Faridabad, through a virtual event held here today.
Speaking on the occasion, the Chief Minister stated that "Atmanirbhar Bharat" or Self-Reliant India is a matter which touches each citizen of the country. The lead role taken by IndianOil's R&D based on advanced Science and Technology will surely fetch success, benefitting the whole nation, he added.
Shri Pradhan congratulated IndianOil and exhorted them to fulfil the energy needs of not only the country but the world. "Atmanirbhar Bharat"- though the terminology is coined now, IndianOil's R&D started it many years ago through their various technologies, stated the Minister. The Union Minister exhorted the scientific community to make it a logistic national hub for clean, alternative and indigenous energy solutions.
Mr Tarun Kapur, Secretary, MoP&NG during his address said that it is a matter of pride that the country is having a Centre designed to achieve highest sustainability rating of LEED Platinum certification and has been designed to be NET-ZERO Campus in terms of energy, with 100% process power to be met through on-campus ~9 MW solar power generation.
Earlier while welcoming the august gathering Mr Sanjiv Singh, Chairman, IndianOil briefed the gathering on the long journey of IndianOil, starting from making Nutan wick stove for the rural populace in the late seventies to the development and deployment of Indmax technology crossing Indian borders in 2019.
Director (R&D), IndianOil, while proposing his vote-of-thanks, expressed the commitment of IndianOil to fulfil not only the energy needs of the nation but to spearhead India's transition from fossil dominant to the multi-faceted sustainable energy economy.
The new campus, coming up on a 60-acre plot at a cost of approx. Rs. 2200 crores would focus on demonstration & deployment of a wide range of technologies developed by IndianOil R&D and will work in tandem with the existing campus at Sector-13, Faridabad.
With its detailed project report prepared by a consortium of internationally renowned architects and science planners, the new R&D Campus will house four Centres of Excellence, in Alternative & Renewable Energy, Nanotechnology, Synthetic Biology and Corrosion Research.
The R&D Centre is designed to achieve the highest sustainability rating of LEED Platinum certification and has been designed to be a net-zero campus in terms of energy and water use; its power (~9 MW) and water needs will be met through on-campus solar energy and water-harvesting systems.
The new campus will be an extension of IndianOil's R&D Centre, set up at Faridabad in 1972 to establish domestic capabilities in producing a wide range of lubricating oils. Since then, the Centre has developed over 4,500 formulations, and IndianOil today markets over 800 grades of OEM-approved lubricants and greases to suit virtually every application across all sectors.
The R&D Centre has over the years blossomed into a state-of-the-art institution for downstream petroleum R&D, focussing on indigenous technologies and processes to suit Indian conditions. The Centre has many achievements to its credit in the 'Make in India' spirit, having recently crossed the milestone of 1,000 patents and today stands at 1164 nos. While many refinery process technologies and catalysts developed by the Centre have been adopted by various IndianOil and non-IndianOil refineries in the country, its IndMax technology was recently licenced to NIS, Serbia - a group refinery of M/s. Gazprom Neft, Russia.
In its nearly five decades of R&D, the Centre has addressed several issues of national importance aimed at achieving self-reliance in the field of energy and allied areas.
John Prasad K.
Chief General Manager
Corporate Communications
Indian Oil Corporation Ltd.
