Fire breaks out at Reliance refinery complex at Jamnagar
Mumbai: A major fire broke out at Reliance's Jamnagar complex on Wednesday morning leading to a shut-down of some of its units. One employee was said to be seriously injured.

A statement from the company said the fire was controlled by Reliance Plant and Fire Fighting Personnel in less than two hours. The fire broke out at one of the vacuum gas oil hydrotreaters units which separate sulphur from crude. The unit, one of the 40 in the Jamnagar complex, had to be shut down.

The company said that as a precautionary measure, the neighbouring `diesel hydrotreating unit — II' was shut down as well and is expected to restart shortly. "All other refinery units, including both the crude units and petrochemical units, are operating normally," said the statement.

Reliance said they it had not yet established the cause of the fire, and was still estimating the extent of damage. It is not known as to when operations would fully resume at the plant.

The Jamnagar refinery processes 6.6 lakh barrels of crude a day which is first distilled at the Crude Distillation Unit (CDU) and the output fed into the two vacuum gas oil hydrotreaters, one of which has been affected, said sources.

The shortfall due to accident is estimated at around 1,00, 000 tonnes of LPG, said senior Petroleum Ministry officials. The oil companies already have LPG stocks of 2,80, 000 tonnes to meet any emergency, they said.

The Petroleum Secretary, M.S. Srinivasan, said fuel supply would not be affected due to the accident. Annual domestic LPG consumption is 10.5 million tonnes, of which RIL supplies 2.5 mt, hence, the impact of the accident would not be much, said the officials.

However, depending on the situation the state-owned companies would be requested to import extra LPG. To begin with, the companies would be asked to import additional 65,000 tonnes, government officials said.
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Reliance refining output may be hit
Ahmedabad: Reliance Industries may take a hit of almost Rs1,200 crore due to a fire in one of the vacuum gas oil hydrotreater units at its Jamnagar refinery early Wednesday morning.

Reliance Industries' Jamnagar refinery has a capacity of 660,000 barrels per day and with one of the two vacuum gas oil hydrotreaters out of action for 10-15 days, production was expected to come down by half and would particularly hit Reliance Industries' export commitments of gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and of some polymer products.

Diesel and gasoline comprised nearly 40-45 per cent of the company's total refined product exports of $5.5 billion during the first six months of the current financial year ending September 30.

The vacuum gas oil hydrotreater unit, which is believed to have been completely gutted in the fire, removes sulphur from crude oil and passes it on to a fluid catalytic cracker unit, which in turn produces gasoline and olefins, which feed the petrochemical units at the Jamnagar refinery. Due to the fire, the complex may not be able to run its downstream petrochem plants of paraxylene-PTA and polypropylene. Though the company is planning to import low sulphur sweet crude oil it may not help reach full capacity immediately.

The removal of the damaged plant and construction of a replacement is expected take more time than predicted by the company.
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Usha Martin looks at 184 pc increase in topline
Kolkata: Leading speciality steel producer Usha Martin is looking at 184 per cent growth in topline at Rs5,000 crore once its ongoing capacity expansion of steel output and value added products is over.

Company officials said the expansion was expected to be complete in 42 months.

Usha Martin is investing Rs1,300 crore in the expansion programme in which steel capacity would be increased from 3.5 lakh tonne to six lakh tonne in 2 years. In three-and-a-half years, the capacity would touch one million tonne.

Meanwhile, value added capacity would be enhanced from 1.7 lakh tonne to three lakh tonne over the next two years.

The company has tied up investments for the project of which almost Rs500 crore would be debt and the balance would be in the form of equity and internal accruals.

To increase the share of value added steel, Usha Martin plans to acquire land in Chennai for setting up a bright bar manufacturing plant to cater to the growing demand of the automobile sector in the south. The investment in land would be Rs25 crore.
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Hero Honda Q2 net hit: drops 9.2 pc
New Delhi: Hero Honda Motors has posted a 9.2 per cent drop in quarterly net profit in the face of rising competition from Bajaj Auto and rising costs. The company's net profit stood at Rs216 crore in the second quarter of the current year as against Rs238 crore in the same period last year.

The company's operating margins fell to 12.7 per cent in July-September from 15.4 per cent in the year-ago quarter. Analysts added that apart from increased raw material costs, the discounts offered to push volumes and counter competition from rival bike makers have also hit margins.

Sales in the quarter increased 3.6 per cent to Rs2,289 crore as compared to Rs2,209 crore. The company sold 7,51,967 two-wheelers, including 21,703 scooters.

Recently Hero Honda announced the launch of two new variants - the new Glamour and Passion Plus Limited Edition after the launch of Bajaj Auto's new CBZ X-treme.
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TVS Motor Q2 net falls 22 pc
Mumbai: TVS Motor Company has reported a 22.28 pc fall in net profit at Rs24.83 crore for the quarter ended September, 2006 as against 31.95 crore for Q2FY06.

The company's total income grew by 33.52 pc at Rs1,088.75 crore from Rs815.36 crore in Q2FY06.
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ONGC to hold 50 pc stake in Tripura power project
New Delhi: ONGC has been asked to implement the 750-MW gas based power project in Tripura in which it will through a single special purpose vehicle (SPV) hold a 50 per cent stake. The project has now undergone a change for the third time since 2005. Initially, the project was to be implemented through two SPVs. Subsequently, early this year, the power generation project was brought under the ONGC fold and the transmission continued to be implemented through an SPV. The move is expected to iron out the problems faced by the twin projects of generation and transmission, with the issue of transmission causing delay in implementation. ONGC would now go ahead on the power project without any hiccups, and invite private participation for the rest of the equity holding in due course.

IL&FS will play the role of a facilitator for the project.
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