India’s BPCL to expand refining capacity with $2.8bn investment

Indian state-owned company Bharat Petroleum (BPCL) is planning to invest at least Rs180bn ($2.8bn) into an expansion of its refineries over the next five years, according to Business Standard.

Through the expansion programme, the oil and gas company intends to enhance its refining capacity by another 19 million tonnes (mt).

The decision is part of the company’s overall expenditure programme of around Rs1080bn ($16.81bn) until 2021-22.

BPCL chairman and managing director D Rajkumar was quoted by Business Standard as saying: “Including our subsidiaries, our refining capacity is somewhere about 31mt, we are planning to move closer to 50mt by somewhere around 2022.”

Under the expansion plan, each of the company’s refineries, including Mumbai, Kochi and Bina, are expected to have a capacity of at least 15mt.

In addition, BPCL is working out plans to enhance the capacity of the Numaligarh refinery located in the state of Assam from the existing 3mt to 9mt a year, according to the news agency.

Rajkumar added: “The Rs1080bn ($16.81bn) investment that we have lined up for the next five years includes the expansion of our refineries, marketing sector and also our upstream presence.”

The company has also lined up plans to expand its retail network with the proposed addition of more than 1,000 outlets a year.

BPCL operates around 14,000 fuel retail outlets across the country.