India’s IOC plans to expand Panipat refinery in Haryana

State-owned Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) is planning to invest Rs324.96bn ($4.39bn) to expand the oil refinery at Panipat in the state of Haryana.

Scheduled for completion by September 2024, the expansion project would increase the refinery’s capacity to 25 million tonnes per annum from the current capacity of 15 million tonnes per annum.

In a filing with the stock exchange, IOC said: “The capacity expansion would improve the operational flexibility of the refinery to meet the domestic energy demand and would also enhance the petrochemicals intensity.”

The Panipat refinery is capable of processing a wide range of both indigenous and imported grades of crude oil into value-added fuels such as petrol, diesel, and ATF.

IOC is also planning to build a polypropylene unit and a catalytic dewaxing unit, according to the Press Trust of India (PTI).

The firm expects the increased production of the value-added speciality products and petrochemicals to improve the margins while de-risking the company’s conventional fuel business.

Said to be the technically most advanced public sector refinery complex of India, the Panipat Refinery & Petrochemical complex serves the demand of petroleum products in the entire North-Western region, including Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Chandigarh, and Uttarakhand.

IOC recently said that its board has approved the construction of a new refinery in Nagapattinam in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, with an investment of Rs293.61bn ($4.01bn).

With an annual refining capacity of nine million metric tonnes, the refinery will be equipped to produce diesel and petrol in compliance with Bharat Stage VI standards. It aims to meet the demand of petroleum products in southern India.