IndianOil: A green journey
Mumbai   05-Jun-2011

IndianOil, a Maharatna company, is India’s biggest refiner, the nation’s largest commercial enterprise and India’s highest ranked Fortune ‘Global 500’ company. But behind its size, numbers and scale is a little known tale of a corporation taking early steps to build eco-sustainability within its business plans.

IndianOil says compliance with laws and regulations on safety, health & environment are accorded the highest priority. Beyond compliance, however, excellence in safety, health & environmental performance and a commitment to good corporate citizenship are encouraged, adding value to the company and its stakeholders.

The Corporation is also an active partner of the United Nations Global Compact Programme, which works with businesses to develop a life- cycle approach to their activities, addressing all issues related to resource extraction and use, production processes, product use and disposal.

As a result of the commitment to sustainability, IndianOil’s operating units and installations have a comprehensive safety, health & environment management system in place. The facilities are periodically reviewed and upgraded for better performance.

IndianOil’s refineries fully comply with the prescribed environmental standards and incorporate state-of-the-art effluent treatment technologies. The environment management systems of IndianOil refineries, pipeline Installations and major marketing installations/ terminals are certified to ISO-14001 standards. The refineries are accredited for Occupational Health & Safety Assessment Series (OHSAS- 18001). All refineries are also rated under International Safety Rating System (ISRS).

The refineries also have been provided with fullfledged effluent treatment plants consisting of physical, chemical, biological and tertiary treatment facilities. ‘Oilivorous-S’ & ‘Oilivorous-A’ technologies are used for the treatment of oily sludge and acid tar respectively. Treated effluent is reused to the extent of 65 to 70 per cent in the refinery units.

IndianOil refineries have adopted various measures for control of gaseous emissions. These include use of low- sulphur fuel oil, desulphurisation of refinery fuel gas, tall stacks for better dispersion of flue gases, advanced process control systems and energy conservation measures to reduce fuel consumption. As a result, the sulphur dioxide emissions at IndianOil Refineries are well below the limits prescribed by the Ministry of Environment & Forests and State Pollution Control Boards. In particular, Mathura Refinery has set up three ambient air qualitymonitoring stations between the refinery and the city of Agra and a fourth one at Bharatpur to minimise the impact on air quality in surrounding areas.

Most IndianOil refineries have commissioned secondary processing units for improving fuel quality and reducing emissions. Some of the recent commissioning includes Hydrogen unit and Diesel Hydrotreater unit at Mathura refinery and Motor Spirit Quality projects at Mathura and Haldia refineries. Additionally, Sulphur recovery units have been installed at all the refineries.

IndianOil’s green initiatives

• Low Sulphur (0.5%) Diesel has been available in metros for the last five years. Extra-low Sulphur (0.25%) Diesel was introduced in the eco-sensitive Taj Trapezium area way back in 1996, and then across the country. Diesel with 0.05% sulphur content was introduced in the metros almost a decade ago.

• Unleaded Motor Sprit (petrol or gasoline) was supplied nationwide since the year 2000.

• Green fuels (petrol and diesel) conforming to Euro-III emission norms have already been introduced in many cities/states; the rest of the country is getting BS-II fuels.

• IndianOil has already invested in green fuel projects at its refineries and also in its ongoing projects.

• Diesel quality improvement facilities were put in place at all seven IndianOil refineries; several more green fuel projects are under implementation or on the anvil.

• The R&D Centre of IndianOil is engaged in the formulations of eco-friendly biodegradable lube formulations; the Centre has been certified under ISO- 14000:1996 for environment management systems.