IOC's Paradip project to be operational by 2012

Indian Oil Corporation's (IOC) refinery project at Paradip in Orissa would be operational from November 2012 after its completion in August that year, official sources said today.

Work on the IOC's refinery project, which was running behind its original schedule of going to operation in 2010, is now on full swing with the public sector oil company having spent Rs 1,600 crore so far on the project, they said.

The new schedule of commissioning the refinery project was informed to Orissa Chief Secretary A K Tripathy through a letter signed by IOC's Director (Projects) B N Bankapura.

The state government had signed an MoU with IOC on February 16, 2004 for setting up the refinery with a capacity of 9 MTPA.

However, the capacity of the proposed refinery was later enhanced to 15 MTPA with an investment of Rs 45,000 crore.

The company had also proposed a petro-chemical complex along with the refinery project.

The board of directors, later on, reduced the project cost to Rs 29,777 crore citing global meltdown, they said.