IOCL's Mathura refinery starts producing 100% BS-VI fuel ahead of deadline

Indian Oil Corporation's Mathura refinery completed the revamp of its all units to produce BS-VI grade fuels ahead of the deadline for roll out of newer emission norms from April 2020, a company official said.

The refinery had undertaken projects to upgrade its diesel and gasoline units for bringing down sulphur level by nearly 80 per cent, Mathura Refinery Executive Director Arvind Kumar told reporters here.

With the commissioning of these facilities, Mathura Refinery is now supplying 100 per cent of its MS (Petrol) and HSD (diesel), meeting BS-VI norms, he added.

IOCL Mathura Refinery has achieved the distinction of becoming first refinery in the country to supply BS-VI compliant fuels, containing less than 10 ppm sulphur with existing units, well ahead of deadline set by the government, he mentioned.

"At a time when all Indian Refineries were producing BS-IV compliant fuels, IOCL Mathura Refinery had gone ahead and was producing BS-VI compliant fuel since January 2018 with its existing units, he told reporters on Friday.

A deadline was also set for rolling out cleaner (BS-VI compliant) fuel across the National Capital Territory (NCT) by April 18 and National capital region (NCR) by April 19, however Mathura Refinery completed the task , ahead of stipulated time, he noted.

It started supply of BS-VI compliant fuels to NCT and NCR from January 18, he disclosed.

The government in january 2016 had decided to shift to BS-VI fuel emission norms from BS-IV from April 2020, skipping altogether BS-V norms.

All the new vehicles to be sold after April 2020 would be BS-VI compliant, as per the government direction.