Koyali plant to turn Virtual Coastal Refinery
Vododara   17-Nov-2010

The IndianOil has drawn up an ambitious plan to convert its refinery at Koyali near Vadodara as the country’s first Virtual Coastal Refinery (VCR) by connecting it to Kandla port through a pipeline. A pipeline already exists between Koyali and Viramgam and the same line will likely by extended to Kandla by the next year, sources said.

Once completed, the project will reduce IOCL’s Koyali refinery’s dependence on other agencies for transportation of crude oil from the port to the facility and other petro-products.

IOCL Director (Refineries) B N Bankapur told The Indian Express: “We are seriously working on the completion of the KVSPL (Kandla-Viramgam-Siddhpur Pipeline). The main purpose is to minimise our dependence on railways and tankers that carry our products from one point to another. The pipeline between Koyali and Viramgam already exists and we are all set to stretch the same line from Viramgam to Kandla probably by next year.”

Elaborating on the concept of VCR, Bankapur said, “While most of the coastal refineries are located on the sea coast, we thought of using the Gujarat Refinery’s Koyali installation for this unique project. We realised that Koyali refinery is strategically located. While it is not too far from the Gulf of Khambhat, it is also very well connected with other cities by road.” Gujarat Refinery has four product pipelines and three crude pipelines.

While the company has two major terminals in Gujarat — at Kindly for product handling and at Vadinar for crude handling — it plans to link Koyali to Kandla.

The present capacity of the Gujarat Refinery, which was built with Soviet assistance at a cost of Rs 26 crore and went on stream in October, 1965, is 13.5 (Million Metric Tonne Per Annum) MMTPA. At the time of the inception of the Gujarat Refinery, the installed capacity was of 2 MMTPA and was designed to process crude from Ankleshwar, Kalol and Nawagam oil fields of Oil & Natural Gas Commission in Gujarat. After at least four expansions between 1967 to date, the present refining capacity has reached to 13.70 MMTPA.

Now, the company plans to go for the expansion and take the capacity up to 16 MMTPA as part of its long-term plans. “Once the expansion plans kickstart, there will be more product and that means we would need intensified transportation. If everything goes well as we have planned, it would be a dream come true situation for us,” said a senior IOC official requesting anonymity.