Panipat Oil Refinery, India

Indian Oil's seventh refinery is located at Panipat, 125km away from Delhi, in the state of Haryana in Northern India. The main units of the facility are a Once-through-hydrocracker (OHCU), a Resid Fluid Catalytic Cracker (RFCC), and a continuous catalytic reformer unit besides other secondary treatment units. This refinery was initially built with the capacity to produce 6 million metric tonnes per annum (mmtpa) of output, and caters to the high demand in Northwest India. It has been proposed to expand the refinery to 12.0 mmtpa, however, no definite project has yet been implemented.

DIESEL HYDRO DESULPHURISATION UNIT

In July 1999 the Panipat refinery commissioned its Diesel Hydro Desulphurisation Unit (DHDS) for production of extra low sulphur diesel with a sulphur content of less than 0.25 percent wt. When completed the refinery will be the second such unit in the country to be commissioned, the first being the Unit at Gujarat Refinery, which was commissioned on 12th June, 1999. Furthermore when the commissioning was formalised, it meant that the refinery became the fastest commissioned DHDS plant in the country.

Saudi Aramco, National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) and Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) have shown a keen interest in picking up a stake in the east India refinery of the Indian Oil Corporation (IOC). The companies are understood to have initiated discussions with IOC to take a 26% equity stake in the project.

IOC's original partner was Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC). The Kuwaiti company however withdrew from the project. IOC had decided to go ahead with the project on its own. KPC, at the time of negotiations decided to get the proposal re-examined in the light of the Asian financial crisis. The company took this measure as it feared that a joint venture may not be profitable

PANIPAT REFINERY PROJECT

The DHDS Unit at the Panipat Refinery was constructed at a cost which was estimated to be in the region of Rs306 crore ($65 million).

The project started after government approval in June 1997, at which point Indian Oil initiated the construction of four DHDS Units at Gujarat, Panipat, Mathura and Haldia refineries, with a total investment of Rs.1776 crore. These projects were initiated with the aim of reducing sulphur content from the current level of 1% by wt. to 0.25% by wt. For the first time in India, a fast track project implementation method called Lumpsum Turn Key (LSTK) was adopted to meet the stringent time schedule for supply of low sulphur diesel.

The process of desulphurisation through DHDS enables reduction of sulphur content in diesel resulting in positive environmental protection results in the control of automotive emissions. Panipat Refinery, with a capacity of 6 mmpta, is known for producing high quality environmentally friendly petroleum products, and recently the refinery has developed a new import substitute '96RON' gasoline.

IOC'S PLANS

The recent investment is part of IOC's ninth plan which sees a planned spending of $14 billion in the next seven years in order to become one of the top ten oil companies in the world. Representatives of the company stated that all future plans and investments are focused to achieve this goal. IOC has planned investments of over 600 billion rupees, with new projects currently under implementation valued in the region of 130 billion rupees.

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