MRPL says coker unit to operate at full capacity in three weeks

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - State-run Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd hopes its 3 million tonne per annum coker unit at southern India refinery will start full-scale operations in about three weeks, its head of refinery said on Wednesday.

"There is some issue with one of the heaters linked to the coker.... We hope this will be fixed in 20 days," M. Venkatesh told Reuters.

The coker plant at the 300,000 barrels per day (bpd) coastal Mangalore refinery has been operating at half its capacity after a technical glitch hit the unit about a month ago, he said.

Venkatesh said his firm's fuel oil production, however, has gone up due to the lower operation at the coker unit.

MRPL, which is a subsidiary of state-owned explorer Oil and Natural Gas Corp Ltd , recently issued a rare tender to export low sulphur fuel oil (LSFO).

Venkatesh said his company's LSFO production has gone up due to higher processing of locally produced low sulphur and waxy Mangla crude, which is produced at the western offshore field of Cairn India Ltd in Rajasthan.

MRPL aims to double the processing of Mangla crude to 2 million tonnes in the 2017/18 fiscal year compared with a year ago.

(Reporting by Nidhi Verma; Editing by Malini Menon)