IndianOil's Haldia unit to boost margins
New Delhi   18-Mar-2010
IndianOil's Haldia refinery expects to earn higher operational margins with the commissioning of the Rs 2,869-crore hydro cracker unit as well as the Rs 1,180-crore Haldia-Paradip pipeline. An IndianOil official told FE that the margin is expected to go up by $2 per barrel of crude refined and IndianOil is likely to feel its impact in the coming quarter of the next fiscal. The project work for a hydro cracker unit, which started in October 2006, was conceived as an Rs 1,400-crore project after it got the board clearance in 2005. In fact, the oil PSU doesn't divulge refinery-wise financial data but according to an official, the Haldia refinery has been one of IndianOil's profit-making units and accounts for more than 15% of its total business. IndianOil operates 10 refineries across the country IndianOil’s Executive Director (Haldia Refinery) Mr. A. K. Ray said ‘‘once through hydro cracker unit’’, comprising a hydrogen unit, sulphur recovery unit and revamp crude distillation unit, has upgraded the Haldia refinery’s products to Euro-IV grade. According to a Supreme Court directive, all metro cities in India are supposed to use Euro-IV grade fuel from January 2010 and the entire country by 2011. Haldia refinery has been the first among all refineries in the country to produce Euro-IV grade fuel with its hydro cracker unit commissioned in February 26, an official said. The unit will increase the distillate yield by 5-6% while augmenting the overall refining capacity from 6 mt to 7.5 mt per annum. This would help in increasing the refining margin by $1 per barrel, he added. Haldia refinery currently refines 150,000 barrels a day. The Rs 1,178-crore subsurface 330 km pipeline, which was commissioned in November last year, has been giving IndianOil a refining margin of Rs 50 per barrel of crude refined, whose impact the company has been getting in balance sheets from the fourth quarter of 2009-2010 fiscal. Another Rs 1,800-crore delayed coker unit, which has already got the board clearance and is now waiting Cabinet clearance, is further expected to increase the refining margin by at least another dollar, the official said.