Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Tuesday said that all leading public sector oil firms — Indian Oil Corp (IOC), Bharat Petroleum Corp ltd (BPCl), Hindustan Petroleum Corp ltd (HPCl) and Engineers India ltd (EIl) will invest Rs1.5 lakh crore in two phases for setting India’s biggest refinery on the west coast.
IOC, the nation’s biggest refiner, will build a 60-million tonne a year oil refinery in Maharashtra along with BPCl, HPCl and EIl, Pradhan twitted on Tuesday. “Refinery to be built in 2 phases (40+20 million tonnes); 1st phase will have more than Rs1 lakh crore investment which is the biggest in India,” he said.
IOC has been looking at west coast for a refinery as catering to customers in West and South was difficult with its refineries mostly in the North. HPCl and BPCl have also been looking at a bigger refinery because of constraints they face at their Mumbai units. “The refinery will produce petrol, diesel, lPG, ATF and feedstock for petrochemical plants in plastic, chemical and textile industries in Maharashtra,” said Pradhan.
In fact, the Minister also discussed the setting up of the refinery with Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis in Mumbai on Monday. “The Government of Maharashtra and Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas will closely work for early identification of land for refinery and finalisation of details of project,” he added.
Fifteen million tonnes a year is the biggest refinery any public sector unit has set up in one stage. IOC recently started its 15 million tonnes unit at Paradip in Odisha, while Reliance Industries holds the distinction of building the biggest refinery in India till now. It built its first refinery at Jamnagar in Gujarat with a capacity of 27 million tonnes, which was subsequently expanded to 33 million tonnes. It has built another unit adjacent to it for exports, with a capacity of 29 million tonnes.
The refinery being planned by the state-owned firms will be bigger than that. The phase-1 itself will be bigger than any one single unit. It will cost Rs 2,500 crore per million tonnes and for the full 60 million tonnes it will cost Rs1.5 lakh crore. It will also be accompanied by a petrochemical complex.