Coming soon India's biggest refinery in west coast

INDIA'S biggest refinery on the west coast is coming up soon which will be jointly developed by Indian Oil Corp (IOC), HPCL and BPCL. "We (at IOC) have been looking at west coast for a refinery as catering to customers in west and south was difficult with our refineries mostly in the north. HPCL has also been looking at a bigger...
refinery because of constraints it faces at the Mumbai unit," IOC director (refineries) Sanjiv Singh said recently.
The PSUs are scouting for a suitable location on the west coast "very large refinery".
"The concept has gone beyond thinking stage and is now under conception," he said. Asked about the size of the refinery, he said, "It will be way bigger than 15 million tonnes."
15 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.
Till now, Reliance Industries has built the biggest refinery in India. 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 PSUs will cost Rs 2,500 crore per million tonnes.
"The size, investment and configuration are all under works," he said. The refinery will also be accompanied by a petrochemical complex. The location in the west coast will provide the unit a natural advantage of easily sourcing crude oil from the Middle East and Africa.
IOC has six refineries with a total capacity of 54.20 million tonnes. It also has subsidiary refineries with 11.50 million tonnes capacity.
Indian Oil Corporation (IndianOil) is India's largest commercial enterprise, with a sales turnover of Rs. 4,50,756 crore ($73.7 billion) and profits of Rs. 5,273 crore for the year 2014-15. IndianOil is ranked 119th among the world's largest corporates (and first among Indian enterprises) in the prestigious Fortune ‘Global 500’ listing for the year 2015. As India's flagship national oil company, with a 33,000-strong work-force currently, IndianOil has been meeting India’s energy demands for over half a century.
The 15 million tonnes refinery at Paradip will achieve "continuous production by month end," he said. This will take IOC's refining capacity to 80.7 million tonnes.