IndianOil plans refinery, petrochem units in Central Asia
New Delhi   12-Apr-2008
IndianOil has informed the petroleum ministry that it is looking into the possibility offsetting refinery-cum-petrochemical complexes in Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan. IOC is setting up a similar facility in Turkey with its partner Calik Energy and is currently engaged in discussions with some other international oil and gas majors for jointly developing the project as a consortium. Currently, IndianOil has no activity pertaining to E&P or refining in Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan. However, IndianOil is keen to participate in the forthcoming tender to be shortly floated by the Turkmenistan government for a new refinery cum petrochemicals project for processing 3 million tonne of oil and 3 billion cubic metre of gas per year. The state-owned oil company of Kazakhstan-KazMunaiGs (KMG), which has already evinced interest to partner IndianOil for its new refinery-cum-petrochemical complex at Ceyhan in Turkey, is being considered as a potential partner by IndianOil for jointly setting up gas processing and gas based petrochemical complexes (including crackers) and derivatives in Kazakhstan. As per IndianOil, the two companies (KMG and IndianOil) can have a mutual partnership agreement the techno-economic viability for setting up such projects can be explored jointly. Currently, Turkmenistan has two refineries with a total refining capacity of 2,40,000 barrels of oil per day. The government of Turkmenistan has plans to raise the total refining capacityto3, 20,000 bpd in the next 8-10 years and construct three new refineries to bring the total refining capacity to 640,000 bpd by 2030. Therefore, similar tenders are also expected to be floated in the new future. Alongside, IndianOil is also keen to participate in Turkmenistan's gas sector. IndianOil, in its recent letter to the petroleum ministry (April 1) has offered to develop projects in Turkmenistan as an integrated package. This, it says can also be looked at as an alternative approach to the gas pipeline project, currency stuck due to security and other concerns. IndianOil has offered development of on shore gas fields; developing natural gas liquefaction facilities; setting up pot facilities for transporting LNG; purchasing LNG in bulk to bring it to India; augmenting the refining and petrochemical capacity besides setting up of gas marketing and CNG networks in Turkmenistan. According to IndianOil, GAIL can also be involved along with IndianOil in setting up of gas marketing and CNG facilities besides NTPC, which can be roped in for constructing a gas based power plant in Turkmenistan.