Hpcl Board To Meet For Bhatinda Refinery

The board of directors of the state-owned Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL) will meet on May 29 to clear the proposal regarding implementing the Rs 9,806 crore grassroots refinery at Bhatinda in Punjab on its own.

The proposal will then be forwarded to the ministry for petroleum and natural gas with details regarding the financing of the project.

This follows a presentation on the project made on May 5 to the minister of state for petroleum and natural gas Santosh Kumar Gangwar. HPCL said it was ready to implement the project without waiting for a joint venture partner to join in.

 

The project had run into rough weather when its first proposed joint venture partner, Saudi Aramco and later US Exxon, had pulled out of the project saying that refinery margins would not be profitable in the project.

Though senior officials of HPCL have been declaring that the French multinational TotalFina has evinced interest in participating in the equity of the project, it is not clear what is holding it back.

When the minister was told that the corporation was willing to implement the project on its own with the help of financial institutions, Gangwar wondered whether in view of the promoters of two other refineries _ East Coast refinery of Indian Oil Corporation and Bina refinery of Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd _ also wanting to go it alone, the financial institutions would have sufficient funds to meet the financial requirements of these refineries.

Gangwar said the proposal for implementing the refinery by itself should first be passed by the board of HPCL and then submitted to the ministry with details of how it proposes to achieve its financial closure.

HPCL has already got clearance from the environment ministry for the crude oil pipeline for the nine million tonne refinery. The project is targeted for completion by the end of the 10th Five Year Plan.