Reliance plans refinery test runs in September
30 Jul 2008
Mumbai: Reliance Industries will start test runs at its huge export-oriented refinery in Jamnagar, by September, a little behind schedule, and has started filling tanks with extra crude oil from Saudi Arabia.
The 580,000 barrel-per-day (bpd) plant, Reliance's second refinery in Jamnagar, will use heavy Middle East crude supplies and export high-quality gasoline, diesel and jet fuel to markets around the world.
Reliance had planned test runs of the world's biggest refinery in July, with commissioning of the project and starting of production in September.
The commissioning of the $5 billion new refinery along with Reliance's running 660,000 bpd plant adjacent to it, will make Jamnagar, in Gujarat, the site of the world's biggest refining complex.
Reliance has already signed up 30 per cent of an incremental Saudi supply of around 550,000 bpd of crude that Saudi Arabia had pledge to pump.
The new refinery, in which Chevron Corporation of the US holds a 5 per cent stake, can process cheap, low-grade crude into gasoline and diesel that meet strict western standards.
The new plant, coming alongside Reliance's existing refinery, which already exports diesel, is expected to boost global fuel supplies and impact the market structure.