Essar Oil’s optimisation project takes refining capacity at Vadinar to 20 million tonnes

Essar Oil, India's second largest private refiner, today announced the completion of the optimisation of its Vadinar refinery project in Gujarat to 20 million tonnes per annum (MMTPA), or 405,000 barrels per day. The optimisation project has been completed four months ahead of schedule, the company said in a release.

Essar Oil had completed the refinery expansion project to raise its nameplate capacity to 18MMTPA from 10.5 MMTPA on 29 March 2012 with an investment of Rs9,100 crore. The company has invested another Rs1,700 crore for the optimisation project, which takes the total investment in Vadinar refinery to about Rs24,000 crore.

The company now accounts for about 10 per cent of India's total refining capacity.

Essar Oil has set up the refinery at a low capital cost of $12,746 per barrel, which is about half the global average.

''We are very happy to announce the completion of our optimisation project much ahead of schedule. This is testimony to the untiring commitment of the Essar Oil team as well as teams from other Essar Group companies who worked seamlessly under highly demanding conditions. With this commissioning, our capex cycle has now come to an end and we are fully geared to deliver the value of our investments to all our stakeholders,'' said Lalit Gupta, MD & CEO, Essar Oil.

''It is a proud moment for us as we have proved our mettle by commissioning and stabilising production of such a large facility in a record time and ahead of schedule. Our operating costs are amongst the lowest worldwide and with the completion of the optimisation project we have significantly moved up in the refining value chain,'' said C Manoharan, director – refinery at Essar Oil.