IOC to invest Rs1,75,000-cr in 7 years; expand refining capacity to 85 mn tonnes

IOC, India's largest oil marketing firm, will invest Rs1,75,000 crore over the next seven years to expand refining capacity - both existing and new - and for laying pipelines, a company official said.

IOC, which has a presence in the complete hydrocarbon value chain from downstream refining and marketing, pipeline transportation, petrochemicals, E&P and gas marketing, said the new capacity additions will take its total refining capacity of IOC to nearly 85 million tonnes.

The company plans to spend Rs34,555 crore in the 15-million tonne a year Paradip oil refinery in Odisha that has recently started operations.

IOC will also be investing Rs15,000 crore to raise capacity at its Panipat refinery to 20.2 million tonnes from 15 million tonnes at present, besides raising capacity at Koyali, Mathura and Barauni units by 2020, the official said.

Thanks to Paradip refinery IOC, the largest enterprise in the country and the foremost ranked Fortune Global 500 Company in India, has regained its status as the top refinery in the country.

Prior to Paradip, its eight refineries had a cumulative crude throughput capacity of 54.2 million tonnes. Paradip has helped IOC overtake Reliance Industries, which has twin refineries at Jamnagar in Gujarat with a capacity of 62 million tonnes.

Essar Oil, the other private refiner, has a 20 million tonnes a year refinery at Vadinar in Gujarat.

IOC is looking to raise capacity at its 13.7 million tpa Koyali refinery in Gujarat by 4.3 million tonnes and capacity at Mathura refinery in Uttar Pradesh by three million tonnes to 11 million tonnes in two stages - first to 9.2 million tonnes and then to 11 million tonnes.

A capacity addition of 0.5 million tonnes is also planned at the 7.5 million tonne Haldia refinery in West Bengal.

Also, capacity at Barauni refinery in Bihar will be expanded from 6 million tonnes to 7 million tonnes in the first phase and then to 9 million tonnes in the second, he said.

"We are also setting up a 700,000 tonnes per annum polypropylene (PP) plant at a cost of Rs 3,150 crore at Paradip. The plant is to be built by 2017-18," the official said.

IOC will use propylene from cracked LPG and ethylene from refinery offgas to produce plastic that is used in making furniture, disposable cups and trays, printed packaging material, plain and transparent films, currency notes, food packets and pressure-sensitive tapes.

IOC is also looking to set up a 5 million tpa LNG import terminal at Ennore in Tamil Nadu.

New pipelines planned include Paradip-Raipur-Ranchi product pipeline, debottlenecking of Salaya-Mathura crude oil pipeline, augmentation of Paradip-Haldia-Barauni crude oil pipeline, Paradip-Hyderabad pipeline and Jaipur-Panipat naphtha pipeline.