IOC, BPCL, HPCL to raise refining capacity to 185.3 MT by FY17

Public sector oil refiners IOC, BPCL and HPCL will jack up their refining capacity by 37 per cent to 185.3 million tonnes by 2016-17 by expanding existing units and commissioning a new plant at Paradip in Odisha.
State refiners currently own 19 refineries with a total capacity of 135.066 million tonnes. Indian Oil Corp (IOC) is the market leader with 54.2 million tonnes capacity at its seven refineries. It also controls Chennai Petroleum (CPCL) that operates 11.5 million tonnes of capacity.
IOC will this year commission its 15 million tonnes refinery at Paradip, Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan told Lok Sabha here today.

"Presently, the project (being built at a cost of Rs 29,777 crore) is in last phase of completion and has achieved 96.7 per cent overall physical progress," he said in a written reply to a question.
Besides Paradip, Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd (HPCL) will expand its Mumbai refinery by 1.7 million tonnes to 8.2 million tonnes and its Visakhapatnam unit from 8.3 million tonnes to 9 million tonnes this fiscal.
Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd (BPCL) will raise capacity of its Mumbai unit by 1.5 million tonnes to 13.5 million tonnes and Bina to 7.2 million tonnes from the current 6 million tonnes. CPCL will raise capacity of its Manali unit from 10.5 million tonnes to 11.1 million tonnes, he said.

Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd (MRPL) will expand refining capacity by one million tonne to 16 million tonnes this fiscal.

Besides public sector units, India also has three refineries in private sector - Reliance Industries' 33 million tonnes domestic refinery and 29 million tonnes only-for-export units and Essar Oil's 20 million tonnes Vadinar plant.
By 2016-17, IOC will marginally raise its Haldia unit capacity to 8 million tonnes from 7.5 million tonnes currently while also expanding Mathura by 3 million tonnes to 11 million tonnes.
Pradhan said HPCL plans to expand its Visakhapatnam unit to 15 million tonnes and BPCL will take capacity of its Kochi refinery to 15.5 million tonnes from the current 9.5 million tonnes.

BPCL would also raise capacity at its subsidiary Numaligarh Refinery to 8 million tonnes from current 3 million tonnes. Besides, its Bina unit capacity will be raised to 9 million tonnes.
Mangalore refinery of MRPL will see expansion to 18 million tonnes by 2016-17, he said.
"BPCL is augmenting its Kochi refining capacity from 9.5 million tonnes per annum to 15.5 million tonnes through Integrated Refinery Expansion Project (IREP) which also envisages modernisation of refinery to produce BS-IV and V (Euro-IV and V) grade auto fuel, residue up-gradation unit to produce value-added products from heavy stream and production of propylene for proposed integrated petrochemical complex," he added.