 The
Gujarat refinery of Indian Oil Corporation''s (IOC) has
increased its domestic market share for linear alkyl
benzene (LAB) by almost 30 per cent. U K Basu, executive
director, Gujarat Refinery, IOC, said the LAB unit,
commissioned in 2004, achieved 100 per cent capacity
ulitisation and has garnered a 30 per cent domestic
market share. He further added, "At Gujarat Refinery,
we have recorded a crude throughput of 12.95 million
metric tonne for 2006-07 and estimate it to increase
up to 13.7 MMT by the year 2010."
This
refinery output for distillate yield (high value products)
was 71.7 per cent of crude and the crude output is 30
per cent of IOC''s total output. It also scaled up its
diesel production from 4.43 MMT to its highest ever
diesel production of 5.06 MMT. The company saw a 14
per cent increase in crude processing in 2006-07 from
the seven refineries totaling processing of 43.98 million
tonne of crude.
The
refinery also started exporting superior grade LAB (used
for manufacturing detergent) to Indonesia, Thailand,
Vietnam, Norway, Turkey and Oman during the year 2006-07.
RIL and Nirma are the other major players competing
with IOC.
At
its Gujarat refinery, the company plans to invest Rs5,693
crore to implement a petrol and diesel quality improvement
project which is expected to be completed by October
2009. This will result in maximising the product availability
mainly in the LPG and HSD categories.
The
company is also studying the viability of setting up
a 15-million metric tonne (MMT) petrochemicals and refinery
facility in Paradip in the near future.
On
6 April, 2007, Sarthak Behuria, chairman, IOC, inaugurated
the Rs300 crore Mundra-Panipat Pipeline project for
transporting imported crude oil to Indian Oil''s Panipat
Refinery in Haryana. The 1,174-km pipeline will meet
the additional crude oil demand of Panipat Refinery,
whose capacity has recently been expanded from 6 to
12 MMTPA.
Indian
Oil also launched its XtraRewards, India''s first online
loyalty card for cash customers in Bangalore on March
26, 2007. The first online cash customer loyalty card,
XtraRewards, was presented to Padmashri Prakash Padukone
by G C Daga, director (marketing).
At
the launch, Daga said, "XtraRewards is the first
reward programme for customer''s paying cash. It is commonly
assumed that plastic money or credit and debit cards
are the most popular means of purchase. But even today
about 90% of the people who drive into petrol pumps
pay in cash. He added that with XtraRewards, such cash
customers can add value to their purchases by piling
up loyalty points. These loyalty points are accrued
even for customers paying through credit and debit cards."
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