Cochin Refineries Turnover At A Record Rs 3900cr

Cochin Refineries Ltd (CRL) has achieved a record turnover of Rs 3,900 crore during 1996-97, an increase of 15 per cent over the previous year.

The companys profit before tax was estimated at Rs 97 crore, CRL chairman K L Kumar told newspersons in Kochi on Tuesday night.

He said CRL could surpass the performance targets set for excellent grading in the memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed with the Union government for the sixth year in succession. As against the target of 7.20 million tonnes the company could process 7.29 million tonnes of crude oil during 1996-97.

For the ninth year in succession CRL attained more than 100 per cent capacity utilisation in the crude distillation unit-I, while the newly added unit achieved 93 per cent utilisation, against the target of 80 per cent, in the second year of operation after commissioning, he said.

 

The chairman said the crude thruput of 7.29 million tonnes during 1996-97 was a record for shutdown year.

CRL also set a record in the production of 928,036 tonnes of kerosene (previous best 824,616 tonnes) 44,996 tonnes of aviation turbine fuel (previous best 38,052 tonnes) and 6,417 tonnes of special boiling point spirit (previous best 2,892 tonnes).

During the year the company produced 260,867 tonnes of liquefied petroleum gas, 615,558 tonnes of petrol, 2,949,298 tonnes of high speed diesel 94,738 tonnes of bitumen, 37,990 tonnes of benzene and 23,525 tonnes of toluene, he said.

Recently, CRL had signed an MoU with the Union government for 1997-98 envisaging a thruput of 7.6 million tonnes per annum against the last years target of 7.2 million tonnes per annum.

Other performance targets include production of 250,000 tonnes of liquefied petroleum gas and 64,000 tonnes of aromatics. Gross margin is fixed at Rs 215 crore, he added. Kumar said research and development (R&D) facilities had been strengthened with the addition of a new fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) pilot plant costing around Rs 5 crore.

For the seventh successive year, CRL operated without a lost time accident and crossed 20 million accident-free man-hours on March 25 (2,794 days), he said. During the ninth plan, it planned to invest around Rs 2,600 crore.

Major projects proposed to be taken up during this period include a 500 mw power project, besides diesel hydrodesulphurisation and capacity expansion projects.

On obtaining the first stage clearance for the proposed 500-mw power project this February, the company appointed Flour Daniel Engineers & Constructors of the US for preparing a feasibility report. The study was progressing well, he said.

Steps were on to set up a diesel hydrodesulphurisation project at a cost of Rs 850 crore to improve diesels quality by reducing sulphur content to 0.25 per cent.

The investment decision was expected shortly from public investment board.

The company had submitted a preliminary feasibility report for the capacity expansion project for increasing the refining capacity from 7.5 million tonnes per annum to 10.5 million tonnes per annum at an estimated cost of Rs 1,470 crore. The project was under the Centres consideration.

CRL was also putting up facilities for marketing chemical grade propylene. It had got a letter of intent for manufacture of the product. Annual production capacity was 15,000 tonnes.

Propylene is a key raw material in the manufacture of petrochemicals like phenol, polypropylene, propylene oxide, propylene glycol and

epichlorohydrin.