Recent fire not to affect HPCL's Vizag investment plans

There may be some delay but work is not likely to stop

The recent explosion at HPCL’s Visakha refinery would not hamper the company's expansion works and proposals at Visakhapatnam, said Roy Choudhary, chairman and managing director, HPCL .

There might be some delay but the works would not stop, he told mediapersons here on Monday.

Choudhary said the country needed more refining capacity for future needs, hence the capacity at Vizag refinery would be raised to 15 million tonnes per annum (mtpa). Currently, projects worth Rs 2,500 crore are going on at the refinery.

Besides, HPCL has proposed to set up a 15-mtpa greenfield project at the proposed Visakhapatnam-Kakinada petroleum, chemicals and petrochemicals investment region. The company said it was confident of finding a suitable partner soon for its implementation.

Explaining last week's explosion at the plant, Choudhary said, “Fire in the cooling tower was a surprising thing. This is the first time in the country where there was fire in water. Our experts are finding out how it happened.”

Till the production of refinery's euro-4 products resumes, which may take a few months, the company said it would supply them from its other refineries to the metros of this region.

“Our first priority is to bring normalcy in production at Vizag refinery as it had lost 130,000 tonnes of production,” he said.

Nine persons had died in the fire accident and the management had airlifted seven critically injured workers to Mumbai for better treatment.

A three-member team from the Oil Industry Safety Directorate, Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas, has already started investigation into the incident, an HPCL release stated. The company has also appointed a five-member internal investigation team from headquarters, Mumbai.