Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Thursday, Aug 04, 2005
Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Thursday, Aug 04, 2005 |
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Industry & Economy
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Petroleum Bid to achieve better refining margin — HPCL, BPCL plan to use more of cheap crude Pratim Ranjan Bose
Kolkata , Aug 3 FOLLOWING in the footsteps of IndianOil, HPCL and BPCL are planning to enhance the usage of heavy high sulphur crude to ensure better refining margin (GRM). While HPCL recently increased its consumption of heavy-sour crude from 35 per cent to 40 per cent at the Visakhapatnam refinery and is discussing means to push it up further, BPCL expects the ratio to go up from 40 to 50 per cent following completion of the capacity expansion project from 9 mt to 12 mt at its Mumbai refinery. The project is expected to be completed next month leading to substantial savings on crude oil. IndianOil, which currently consumes 50 per cent heavy crude, is now gearing up to use 75 per cent heavy-high sulphur crude by 2009 on an expanded refining capacity base. The company's proposed 15-mt refinery at Paradip will run solely on such cheaper crude variety. HPCL sources said that the company had recently appointed a consultant to prepare an investment roadmap to alter its refining process which would be suitable for using more of the cheaper crude. The project is clubbed with the proposed de-bottlenecking and capacity expansion at Vizag refinery and the greenfield project at Bhatinda in Punjab. BPCL, which is currently in the last leg of commissioning its 3 mt expansion programme at Mahul in Mumbai, is also considering adopting the route for its proposed greenfield venture at Bina in Madhya Pradesh. The sources said that the company was striving to maximise its GRM by using over 50 per cent sulphur crude. Regarding the Mumbai refinery expansion project, BPCL sources said that of an estimated outlay of Rs 2,100 crore, Rs 1,500 crore had been deployed.
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