New Delhi: Indian Oil Corp, Ltd, the country’s largest oil firm, plans to invest ₹ 1.75 trillion to nearly double its refinery capacity, boost petrochemical production, expand gas business and lay new pipelines to become a vertically integrated company, its chairman Sanjiv Singh said. Indian Oil plans to increase its refining capacity to 150 million tonnes per annum by 2030 from 80.7 million tonnes now. It currently owns and operates 11 out of the 23 oil refineries in the country.

“As the leading refiner in the country and a dominant player across a diverse portfolio of offerings in energy, Indian Oil is focussing on all emerging opportunities for organic and inorganic growth through vertical integration and strategic diversification, besides pursuing value-creating research areas," Singh said in the company’s latest annual report.

Projects worth ₹ 32,000 crore are in various stages of execution and plans are underway to implement more projects costing about ₹ 1.43 trillion, he said.

According to Singh, plans to nearly double refining capacity by 2030 include “greenfield refineries of subsidiary Chennai Petroleum Corp. Ltd (CPCL) and the proposed Ratnagiri Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd (RRPCL), apart from numerous brownfield expansions".

Once completed, the Ratnagiri refinery would be the world’s largest integrated greenfield refinery-cum-petrochemicals complex with a capacity of 60 million tonnes per annum. The project is being executed in partnership with state-owned Bharat Petroleum Corp. Ltd (BPCL) and Hindustan Petroleum Corp. Ltd (HPCL) along with Saudi Aramco and ADNOC of UAE.

“Several pipeline projects with a combined capital expenditure of over ₹ 20,000 crore are under implementation. Upon completion, Indian Oil’s pipeline network would expand to about 20,000 km," Singh said, adding that a 69-km pipeline is also being laid to transport petroleum products to Nepal.

Indian Oil’s current investment cycle includes ₹ 16,628 crore in upgrading refineries to produce Euro-VI emission norms compliant petrol and diesel by 2020 as against Euro-IV fuel being produced now. The company is investing ₹ 15,600 crore in expansion of petrochemical projects and another ₹ 74,600 crore in raising the capacity of its existing refineries.

Another ₹ 36,500 crore worth of projects are in pipeline but have not been approved by Indian Oil’s board yet. These include expansion of its newest refinery at Paradip in Odisha to 18 million tonnes from current 15 million tonnes, as also the expansion of Bongaigaon unit.

Expansions are planned at the firm’s Panipat refinery in Haryana, Koyali refinery in Gujarat, Barauni refinery in Bihar and Mathura refinery in Uttar Pradesh. Indian Oil is also looking at adding 9 million tonnes capacity to its subsidiary CPCL.

On diversification, Singh said Indian Oil has decided to infuse equity in Paradip Plastic Park Ltd, a joint venture with Industrial Development Corporation of Odisha to promote downstream plastics-based units near the Paradip refinery. The company has plans for setting up a Textiles Park in Odisha based on the feedstocks available from Paradip refinery.

“Looking at the future, the company is strongly focussed on offering a bouquet of ecofriendly energy options other than liquid fuels to its customers. These would include natural gas, LNG, CNG, PNG, autogas, biogas, hydrogen and electricity," said the Indian Oil chairman.

According to Singh, Indian Oil’s 5 million tonnes a year LNG import terminal at Kamarajar Port in Ennore, Tamil Nadu, would be commissioned by the end of the current year. Indian Oil is also booking capacities in other LNG terminals, both on the east and west coasts of India.

“Indian Oil is developing three natural gas pipelines—Mallavaram-Bhopal-Bhilwara-Vijaipur, Mehsana-Bhatinda & Bhatinda-Jammu," Singh said, adding it is also partnering in the development of a 1,500-km natural gas pipeline grid to connect Guwahati to other major cities of all north-eastern states. Indian Oil retails CNG to vehicles and piped cooking gas to households in nine cities and is “aggressively taking part in the various bidding rounds for gas," Singh added.

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