BPCL to raise capacity at Bina refinery to 9 mn tonne

State-owned Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd (BPCL) today said it will raise capacity at its just commissioned Bina refinery in Madhya Pradesh to 9 million tonne and is looking at the right time for a public offering of the unit.

The 6 million tonne a year, or 120,000 barrels per day, unit was commissioned in January this year and will be formally inaugurated by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on May 20, BPCL Chairman and Managing Director RK Singh told reporters here.

The project is being built by Bharat Oman Refineries Ltd -- a joint venture between BPCL and Oman Oil Co (OOC) -- at a cost of Rs 11,397 crore.

"We are looking at expanding the capacity to 9 million tonne in the first phase in what is called creeping expansion," he said. Under this, capacity of existing equipment will be raised, a process that may take up to three years and may cost about Rs 2,000 crore.

"When we take a maintenance turnaround in three years' time, we plan to hook-up the expanded equipments," he said.

Singh said in the second phase, the Bina refinery capacity would be taken up to 15 million tonne. "Second phase expansion is contingent upon certain conditions like availability of enough water," he said.

BORL Managing Director U N Joshi said the company plans to come out with an initial public offering (IPO) "when the market conditions are right".

"We are ready for the IPO. It all depends on market condition," he said, adding that a public offering of about 25% equity shares is planned.

Post-IPO, BPCL will hold 49% stake in BORL, while OCC would have 26%.

Singh said Bina will initially process crude oil imported from Saudi Arabia. "The refinery is designed to process Saudi crude and we have tied up 2.5-3 million tonne of crude from Saudi," he said.

The firm has laid a 935-km-long cross country crude pipeline from Vadinar on the Gujarat coast to Bina for transporting the imported crude oil.

BPCL operates a 12 million tonne or 240,000 bpd refinery in Mumbai. Its unit Kochi Refineries runs a 9.5 million tonne or 190,000 bpd refinery in Kerala. Besides, BPCL also owns a majority stake in a 60,000 bpd refinery in North-East India.

The Bina refinery has a one million tonne per annum capacity naphtha hydrotreater, half-a-million-tonne continuous catalyst reformer, 1.95 million tonne hydrocracker, a 1.63 million tonne diesel hydrotreater and a 1.36 million tonne delayed coker.