IOC to commission Paradip refinery by 2012
New Delhi   20-Oct-2010

Government-owned IndianOil (IOC) on Tuesday said its Rs 29,777-crore Paradip refinery in Orissa will be commissioned by March 2012 and will cater to domestic market rather than exports as previous thought, due to rise in fuel demand at home.

"We will hardly be doing any exports from Paradip as the entire production will be consumed in the domestic market," IOC Director (refineries) B N Bankapur told reporters here.

The refinery was originally planned to export at least 2.05 million tonne of petrol and 124,000 tonne of naphtha out of its yearly output of 15 million tonne. But with petrol demand growing by 13-14 per cent and diesel by 8-10 per cent, I don't think we will be left with any product to export," he said.

The refinery will produce 5.97 million tonne of diesel, 3.4 million tonne of petrol, 1.45 million tons of kerosene/ATF, 536,000 ton ne of LPG, 124,000 tonne of naphtha and 335,000 tonne of sulphur, all of which will be for sale in domestic market.

Some of 200,000 tonne of propylene to be produced by the unit may be exported, he said. Bankapur said the refinery will start producing fuel by March 2012 when it will commission the primary units like Crude Distillation Unit. Secondary units will be commissioned by July, 2012, and operations stabilised by November, 2012.