Indian Oil begins commissioning its Paradip Refinery
India’s biggest refiner, Indian Oil Corporation has begun the process of commissioning of its 15 MMPTA state-of-the-art Paradip Refinery. The plant will be fully commissioned in six months, according to Mr Sanjiv Singh, Director (Refineries).
Currently, the processing of crude in the Atmospheric and Vaccum Unit (AVU) has started and products like LPE, Naphtha, Kerosene, Gas Oil, RCO etc are bring produced.
The refinery, built at a cost of Rs 34,555 crore, can process a large variety of crude and can produce Euro-IV and Euro-V quality fuel. Once fully operational, it will compete with the plants in the Middle East and China for business.
The Paradip refinery has Flue Gas desulphurisation facilities, vapour recovery system from jetty loading and many more such features, that are a first for an Indian refinery. These are built to minimize the environmental damage that such refineries cause, making them more eco-friendly.
Paradip plant was initially expected to begin operations in 2012, but problems involving supplies from contractors, environmental concerns and natural calamities, repeatedly delayed the project.
The state refiner will shut the only crude unit at the plant after 10-15 days of operations for about two months and use the intermediary products for commissioning the secondary units.
India has nearly doubled its refining capacity over the last decade to almost 5 million barrels per day, making it the world’s fourth largest refining center after the US, China and Russia, according to BP’s statistical review of world energy.
The Paradip refinery is the most sophisticated of IOC’s 11 plants. With the commissioning of Paradip refinery, IOC’s overall refining capacity has been increased to 1.61 million bpd, about 35 percent of the country’s 4.6 million bpd capacity.
Paradip refinery is expected to mainly cater to the markets in eastern India, currently fed by sourcing fuels from private players and other plants in northern India, and free up some gasoline for overseas markets.
