IndianOil completes Haldia expansion
New Delhi   09-Mar-2010
IndianOil has completed the Rs 3,700-crore capacity augmentation and product quality improvement projects at Haldia refinery. The over three-year-long investment programme in the refinery came to a close on February 26 with the commissioning of the Rs 2,800-crore hydro-cracker unit. According to a company press release, the capacity of the refinery is augmented by 25 per cent from 6 million tonne per annum (mtpa) to 7.5 mtpa. Commissioning of five projects also enables the refinery to supply Euro-IV grade auto-fuel, as per the National Auto-fuel Policy. It may be mentioned that the refinery originally had a capacity to refine 2.5 million tonne light -sweet crude for manufacturing of lubricants. Talking to Business Line, a company source said that, "Overall the projects enable us to refine more crude and reduce the share of low value items (bottom end products) produced during the process of distillation. The increase in the share of the high value items will improve the profitability of die refinery." According to sources, the profitability of the refinery will increase further once the company implements the proposed Rs 1,800 crore delayed coker unit.