BPCL, or Bharat Petroleum Corp.Ltd, India's second-largest public sector refinery is looking at diversification into petrochemicals as its plans to expand its Kochi refinery, on India's west coast, from 9.5 million mt/year to 15 million mt/year, chairman R.K.Singh, told reporters at a late evening conference on Friday.
BPCL aims to build a niche petrochemical project at a cost of Rupees 50 billion-60 billion ($1.04 billion-1.25 billion), and plans to rope in a multinational partner for the project.
The company has looked at some propylene derivatives, which are currently imported and not manufactured in the country, Singh said.
The petrochemical project would use feedstock from the expanded refinery and the projects are likely to be completed in the next five years.
Apart from the Kochi refinery expansion, BPCL plans to add capacity at the new joint venture grassroots refinery it commissioned this year in Bina in Madhya Pradesh, central India, and also add capacity at its Mumbai refinery.
While Kochi refinery would add 6 million mt/year in capacity, the Bina refinery would take the creeping expansion mode to add 3 million mt/year and the Mumbai refinery, which a faces tremendous space crunch would add 2-3 million mt/year through yield optimization and operational efficiencies, B.K.Dutta, director, refineries said.
Datta said the company plans to replace two CDUs with one CDU; and two FCCUs with one, in order to take the expansion vertical to save space and at the same time increase capacity.
The Bina refinery, which was formally inaugurated in May this year is expected to stabilize by the end of this calendar year, Singh said.
The Bina refinery has started production, and generally refineries achieve 50-60% capacity in the first year of operation, Singh said.
The refinery has tied up adequate crude from Saudi Arabia, he added.
The refinery can process Arab Mix crude (65% Arab Light and 35% Arab Heavy) and has the flexibility to process other types of Middle Eastern crude.
BPCL currently operates the Mumbai refinery which has a capacity of 12 million mt/year, the Kochi refinery with a capacity of 9.5 million mt/year and its subsidiary Numaligarh Refinery in Assam operates a 3 million mt/year refinery. The joint venture Bharat Oman Refineries Ltd's Bina Refinery has a capacity of 6 million mt/year.
