IOC plans to scale up production
Asian Age, New Delhi   13-May-2020

With the demand for petroleum products picking up, state-owned oil retailer Indian Oil Corporation is planning to scale up to 80 per cent of the design levels by the month-end.

As the throughputs are gradually picking up pace, the refineries are currently operating at about 60 per cent of their design capacities, according to top IOC officials.

Besides, IOC has also said it has already re-started several process units at its refineries that were down due to the lockdown. "Similarly, IOC has resumed manufacture of petrochemical intermediates like high-density polyethylene (HDPE) and polypropylene at its Panipat plant. With the demand for these grades likely to increase even further in the coming days, the naphtha cracker as well as mono-ethylene-glycol (MEG) plant at Panipat are back in operation," the IOC said in the statement on Monday. "The polypropylene plant at Paradip too will resume operations in a couple of days," it added.

"The corporation's refiner-ies were operating full throttle before the lockdown but had to curtail throughputs and bring operations down to nearly 45 per cent of design capacities by the first week of April 2020 in view of product containment issues forced by a steep drop in demand," the offical said.