IOC mulls another refinery on west coast

Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) is weighing the option of setting up another greenfield refinery to meet the rising demand of petroleum and petrochemical products. The refinery with an envisaged capacity of 14-15 million metric tonnes per year (MMTPA) is expected to entail an investment of about Rs 15,000-20,000 crore, said government sources in the know of the development. The proposed refinery is likely to come up on the western coast, sources said.

When contacted a senior official of IOC said that it has been on the anvil for quite some time to set up a new refinery on the west coast for a long time now.

“Presently our focus is on the eastern region. It is too premature to talk about the new proposed refinery on the west now,” the official said.

The current refining capacity of India is about 130 million tones and this demand is rising at about 4 million tones per annum, sources said.

IOC is also in the process of forming a core team to conduct feasibility study and finalise the location of the project. “It could be anywhere in Maharashtra or Gujarat,” sources said.

IOC would rope in a joint venture partner if the project is finalised, sources said. Gujarat Refinery at Koyali in Western India is Indian Oil’s largest refinery. When commissioned in 1965-66, the Gujarat refinery had a design capacity of 3.0 MMTPA. It was subsequently increased to 4.3 MMTPA by the revamping of three distillation units. Today, it has a refining capacity of 14 MMTPA.

The Indian Oil Group of companies owns and operates 10 of India's 20 refineries with a combined refining capacity of 60.2 MMTPA. These include two refineries of subsidiary Chennai Petroleum Corporation Ltd. In petrochemicals, Indian Oil is investing Rs. 20,000 crore (US$ 4 billion) by the year 2011-12, according to the company’s official website.

Indian Oil, which operates over 18,500 petrol & diesel stations, the largest and the widest network in the country, has recently featured in Fortune 500 list along with seven other Indian companies.