IndianOil unveils dream petrochem plan
Hyderabad   17-Aug-2010

Strongly driven by the highest ever sales of petroleum products and boosted by an increasing contribution from its petrochemicals and gas businesses, the nation's largest corporate and its highest ranked Fortune 'Global 500' company, IndianOil (IndianOil) has registered a gross turnover of Rs. 2,71,074 crore for the year 2009-10 and the profit after tax stood  at Rs. 10,221 crore.


B. N. Bankapur
IOC Director (Refineries)
IndianOil's venture into new businesses, including petrochemicals, has been a contributing factor for the remarkable results facilitating the Corporation to be 'the energy of India'.  Despite the uncertain phase that the global economy went through, IndianOil managed to notch up a growth of 4.6 per cent, registering a sales volume of 63.7 million tonnes. The Corporation's refineries surpassed 100 per cent capacity utilisation for the third consecutive year and clocked a throughput of 50.7 million tonnes. IndianOil's pipelines network registered the highest ever operational throughput of 65 million tonnes of crude oil and petroleum products.

Panipat, Haldia and Mathura refineries commenced production of BS-IV compliant petrol and diesel. Stream-sharing between group refineries ensured better optimisation, capacity utilisation, value addition and enhanced gross refining margins. To widen the crude oil basket, several new grades were procured from Australia, Kazakhstan, Algeria, Nigeria and Libya. Continuing with the direct chartering of ships for petroleum imports, crude imported for IndianOil touched 39 million tonnes in 2009-10. Four projects were commissioned for flare gas recovery systems at Digboi, Haldia, Barauni and Gujarat refineries.

IndianOil is currently implementing projects with an approved cost of over Rs. 47,000 crore. The major ones in the refining segment are - a 15 MMTPA refinery at Paradip; residue upgradation and MS/HSD quality improvement at Gujarat Refinery; MSQ upgradation projects at Barauni, Guwahati, Digboi, Bongaigaon; DHDT at Bongaigaon Refinery and Panipat Refinery Expansion. The projects related to the integrated crude oil handling facilities at Paradip are also under way.

In response to the newer opportunities, IndianOil is continuously striving for growth through integration of its core business with opportunities available in the petrochemicals sector.

The year 2004-05 marked IndianOil's big-ticket entry into petrochemicals with the commissioning of the country's largest Linear Alkyl Benzene (LAB) plant at Gujarat Refinery in August 2004. It is also the largest grassroots single train Kerosene-to-LAB unit in the world, with an installed capacity of 1,20,000 metric tonnes per annum MTPA. Currently, two grades of LAB - high molecular weight and low molecular weight - are being produced. The quality of the LAB produced here has found wide acceptance in the domestic and overseas markets.

IndianOil has also commissioned India's largest Naphtha Cracker Complex built at a cost of Rs. 14,439 crore. India's leading Fortune-500 Company's successful foray into petrochemicals received yet another significant impetus with the commissioning of the largest single train Naphtha Cracker Unit of the country at IndianOil's Panipat Refinery Complex. The naphtha cracker is designed to produce 8,57,000 TPA of ethylene.  The naphtha would be sourced from IOC's Gujarat Refinery in western India and Panipat and Mathura Refineries in north.

IndianOil's mega petrochemical plan and strategic diversification plans will contribute significantly to achieving IndianOil's vision to the energy of India and becoming a globally admired company committed to energizing the nation in its quest towards energy independence to emerge as a global economic nerve centre.