State-run oil refiners will invest about Rs 66,250 crore over the next two years on capacity expansion and projects to upgrade the quality of petrol and diesel produced at the existing plants.     

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Indian Oil Corp, the nation's largest refiner, will pump in Rs 29,836.82 crore in improving petrol and diesel quality at its refineries in Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Bihar and Assam and setting up a petrochemical complex at Panipat, Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas Jitin Prasada said in a written reply to a question in Lok Sabha here today.     

IOC is investing Rs 14,439 crore in naphtha cracker project at Panipat and another Rs 1,007.83 crore in expansion of the Panipat refinery from 12 million tonnes a year to 15 million tonnes. It will also invest Rs 2,869 crore in a project to improve diesel quality and expansion of Haldia refinery capacity form 6 million tonnes to 7.5 million tonnes.     

Fuel quality improvement project at Koyali refinery in Gujarat would cost Rs 5,882 crore, he said, adding similar projects were under execution at Panipat refinery, Mathura, Barauni, Guwahati, Digboi and Bongaigaon refinery.     

Bharat Petroleum Corp (BPCL) is investing Rs 3,941 crore in increasing capacity of its Kochi refinery in Kerala to 9.5 million tonnes from currently 7.5 million tonnes. 

Prasada said Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd (HPCL) is investing Rs 7,064.5 crore in petrol and diesel quality improvement projects at is Mumbai refinery while another Rs 5,744.8 crore was being spent on similar projects at its Visakh refinery in Andhra Pradesh.    

Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals is investing Rs 12,412 crore on increasing its refining capacity to 15 million tonnes from currently 9.69 million tonnes.     

The companies are upgrading aging refineries to enable them to produce cleaner petrol and diesel (complaint with Euro-III and IV emission norms) to cut tail-emissions from vehicles.     

To a separate question, Prasada said IOC, Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC), BPCL, HPCL and GAIL India spent lesser amount of advertisments in 2008-09.     

IOC spent Rs 60.37 crore on advertisements in 2008-09, down from Rs 92.27 crore in the previous year while the same for ONGC came down from Rs 1,458 crore to Rs 1,291 crore.     

BPCL cut advertisement expenditure to Rs 1412.57 crore from Rs 5,067 crore in 2007-08 while HPCL saw spending decline from Rs 2,887 crore to Rs 673 crore. GAIL's advertisement expenditure remained almost unchanged at Rs 457 crore.

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