IOC to invest Rs25,000 crore in new 15-million tonne refinery at Ennore

Mumbai: State-run refiner and oil retailer Indian Oil Corporation will invest about Rs25,000 crore in a new 15-million tonne refinery and petrochemicals complex to be set up at Ennore in Tamil Nadu.

The addition of 15-million tonnes capacity would help IOC maintain its position as India's largest refiner. IOC has a total refining capacity of 60-million tonnes, which it plans to increase to 80-million tonnes by 2012 while pushing up revenues to $60 billion.

The Ennore refinery, scheduled to be completed four years after it commissions its East coast Paradip refinery in Orissa, would cater to the export market, a senior official said, adding, "The 15-million tonne Paradip refinery is scheduled for commissioning in 2011 and our Ennore refinery will come up sometime in 2015-16," he said.

The refinery-cum-petrochemicals complex at Ennore would come up as a joint venture of IOC's Chennai Petroleum Corp Ltd. "The equity structure has not yet been decided. We will work on that once we get all necessary approvals," he said.

Besides the refinery, the Ennore complex will have a naphtha cracker and an aromatics complex to utilise the products from the refinery.

Meanwhile, petroleum minister Murli Deora had met Tamil Nadu chief minister M Karunanidhi in Chennai to seek 3,500-4,000 acres of land for the refinery-cum-petrochemical complex.