Indian Oil’s Mathura refinery now produces 100% BS-VI compliant fuels
10 Feb 2020
1
Indian Oil Corporation has successfully met the challenge of producing automobile fuels complying with BS-VI norms ahead of the deadline for automobiles in the country switching to BS-VI norms as stipulated by the government.
As a major step towards reducing air pollution, in January 2016, Government of India announced its decision to skip the BS-V emissions norms and straight away move from BS-IV to BS-VI norms. The government set 1 April 2020 as the deadline for compliance by all automobiles coming out of factories in the country.
The government also set a deadline for rolling out cleaner (BS-VI compliant) fuel across the National Capital Territory (NCT) by April 2018 and National Capital Region (NCR) by April. 2019.
IOC Mathura Refinery was the first refinery to take up the challenge of meeting the requirement of supplying NCT region with BS-VI compliant fuels (Sulphur - less than 10 ppm) with its existing facilities/and units. IOC ensured supply of BS-VI compliant fuels to NCT and NCR in January' 2018, well ahead of the stipulated date.
Further, in order to upgrade the total production of MS (petrol) and HSD (diesel) produced at Mathura Refinery to meet the most stringent BS-VI norms, some revamp projects were taken up under the Quality Improvement Project (QIP). These included modifications in existing process units, including diesel hydro desulphurisation unit (DHDS) and gasoline hydro desulphurisation unit (Prime-G). Now, IOC Mathura refinery has successfully completed the project jobs and has successfully commissioned the revamped facilities in January'2020.
With the commissioning of these facilities, Mathura refinery is now supplying 100 per cent of its MS (petrol) and HSD (diesel) meeting the BS-VI norms.
It is very important to note that with the change in fuel specifications from BS-IV to BS-VI in MS (petrol) and HSD (diesel) will bring down sulphur by 5 times which is a whopping 80 per cent reduction and would make environment substantially cleaner.
Bharat stage emission standards (BSES) are standards instituted by the Government of India to regulate the emissions of air pollutants from motor vehicles. The standards and the timeline for implementation are set by the Central Pollution Control Board under the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change.
Since October 2010, Bharat Stage (BS) III emission norms have been enforced across the country, which allowed sulfur content in MS (petrol) and HSD (diesel) up to 150 ppm (parts per million) and 350 ppm respectively.
Emission norms were further tightened in the subsequent step in the form of BS-IV emission norms, which were made effective from April' 2017. These norms allowed Sulfur in MS (petrol) and HSD (diesel) up to 50 ppm level.
