HPCL seeks foreign partners for refinery project

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Hindustan Petroleum Corp is scouting for a foreign partner as it revives a plan to build a 300,000 barrel per day (bpd) refinery and a petrochemical project, its chairman said on Tuesday.

"GAIL has confirmed its participation in the petrochemical project... We have written to foreign companies if they are interested in the project," S. Roy Choudhury told reporters.

HPCL shelved the plan in 2010 after France's Total and the LN Mittal group, owner of the world's top steel firm ArcelorMittal, pulled out of the project after the economic downturn hit global demand for refined fuels globally.

He said HPCL had sought allocation of land for the project, to be built in Visakhapatnam on the south east coast.

He said HPCL was aiming to have a refining capacity of 840,000 bpd by 2020.

It operates the 166,000 bpd Vizag refinery and a 130,000 bpd plant in Maharashtra. It also has a stake in the 180,000 bpd Bathinda refiner, operated by Hindustan-Mittal Energy Ltd, part-owned by LN Mittal.

(Reporting by Nidhi Verma; Editing by Helen Massy-Beresford)