IOC seeks land adjacent to its Haldia refinery for expansion
New Delhi   03-Sep-2010

IndianOil has urged the Union Government to transfer 150 acres in Haldia, still under the possession of the closed facility of Hindustan Fertiliser Corporation (HFC), to its Haldia refinery.

This will facilitate IOC's long-term plan to expand the capacity of the refinery and add downstream units to manufacture petrochemical products. It might be noted that some land of the closed fertiliser factory was earlier transferred to the refinery.

According to sources, IOC has requested the Union Petroleum and Natural Gas Ministry to take the issue forward with the concerned Ministries in the Centre, to ensure availability of land for future expansion of Haldia refinery.

The closed fertiliser facility (which shares a common boundary with the refinery) originally had 500 acres of land leased out by the Kolkata Port Trust (KoPT). Of this, approximately 350 acre was earlier transferred, partly to Tata Steel subsidiary Hooghly Met Coke and Power Company (HMCPC) and partly to Haldia refinery. While HMCPC used its portion of land to set up its greenfield metallurgical coke manufacturing unit, IOC used its portion to set up Rs 2,800-crore hydro-cracker project commissioned recently.

The hydro-cracker project will improve the distillate yield of the refinery with positive impact on the refining margin. To further enhance profitability IOC is currently toying with a Rs 2,850-crore proposal for setting up delayed coker plant at the refinery.

"We have exhausted the land available with us and even carried out some restructuring to make space available for the projects currently lined up. Naturally no major expansion of the refinery may be possible unless land is available adjacent to our existing facility in Haldia," a company source said.

The source said that the company was nursing a long-term plan to enhance the capacity of the refinery by another five million tonne to 12.5 mt and add a paraxylene facility in the downstream.