India's state-run Bharat Petroleum Corp. Ltd. is set to boost its naphtha exports next year with the completion of expansion works at its Kochi refinery to 15 million mt/year from 9.5 million mt/year, scheduled around the first quarter, industry sources said this week.
The expansion is expected to increase BPCL's naphtha production by 10%-15% -- at least 550,000 mt/year, or around 13,500 b/d -- which would enable the refiner to restore monthly exports from Kochi on the Indian southwest coast, to two cargoes, one source familiar with the matter said.
But the increase in exports from Kochi would only last for around a year, as naphtha would be diverted as feedstock into BPCL's new petrochemical project, the source said.
The propylene derivatives petrochemical project in Kochi is expected to be completed around the end of next year, and is due for commissioning around the first-quarter of 2018, industry sources said.
It will have the capacity to produce 47,000 mt/year of acrylic acid, 92,000 mt/year of oxo-alcohols and 190,000 mt/year of acrylates and will require 250,000 mt/year of propylene to produce 329,000 mt/year of petrochemicals, S&P Global Platts had reported.
Shipping fixtures showed that BPCL shipped a total 972,453 mt of naphtha between January and October, or nearly 20% of the total 4.911 million mt exported by Indian refiners.
Exports from Kochi were irregular, the fixtures showed. BPCL moved a 35,000-mt naphtha cargo from Kochi in January and two cargoes from Mumbai; one parcel in February from Mumbai; two cargoes from Kochi and two from Mumbai in March; one lot from Mumbai in April; one cargo each from Mumbai and Kochi in May; one cargo each in June; two shipments from Mumbai and one from Kochi in July; three lots from Mumbai and one from Kochi in August and two parcels from Mumbai and one from Kochi in September.
SURGE IN OCTOBER EXPORTS
There was a jump in BPCL'S exports in October -- five cargoes totaling 176,614 mt from Mumbai and two lots totaling 66,660 mt from Kochi.
Sources said this was due to ongoing upgrading works at the Mumbai refinery to produce auto-fuels complying with Euro-IV/Euro-V specifications.
During the project works at the Mumbai plant, which is expected to last through December and January, BPCL has been using lighter crude grades which yield more naphtha.
BPCL in late December last year commissioned a new 6 million mt/year crude distillation unit, replacing two old CDUs with 2 million mt/year and 4 million mt/year capacity, at its Mumbai refinery on the Indian west coast, Platts has reported.
The new CDU gives BPCL the option of processing an equal volume of high and low sulfur crude grades, a refinery official had said.
With the new CDU, the Mumbai refinery can process up to 14 million mt/year of crude.
Kochi's integrated refinery expansion project, or IREP, is also designed to be flexible in processing high sulfur crudes that can fetch a higher margin, BPCL said on its website.
It will have a new CDU with a capacity of 10.5 million mt/year, while a delayed coker unit will convert the high-sulfur, low value bottom products generated from existing refinery and IREP units to petcoke.
The project includes a fluid catalytic cracking unit, VGO Hydro-treater, diesel hydrotreater, sulfur Recovery unit, tail gas treating unit and hydrogen generation unit.
