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IndianOil powers country’s first SBR plant at Panipat

National oil and gas company Indian Oil Corporation Ltd (IOCL), the country’s largest refiner which figures regularly on the Fortune 500 list, has chalked an ambitious array of expansion programmes to enlarge its footprints, both domestic and global.

Under the able and dynamic leadership of globally renowned energy industry wizard R S Butola and one of the world’s most star-studded board of directors, the company is methodically and scientifically working its way towards becoming the world’s top downstream oil and gas company.
In the latest development on Friday, Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister M Veerappa Moily commissioned a Rs 890-crore Styrene Butadiene Rubber (SBR) project at its Panipat refinery-cum-petrochemical complex.

The minister announced Indian Oil Corporation Ltd’s plan  to expand the capacity of its largest refinery at Panipat to 21 million tonne. Currently, it has a capacity to turn 12 million tonne of crude oil per annum into refined petroleum products or fuel. ‘The refining capacity of Panipat will be enhanced to 21 million tonnes per annum,’ Moily told reporters here.

Butola said the expansion plan was at the drawing board stage and investments have not yet been firmed up. As a thumb-rule, it could cost about $1 billion. The expansion may be accompanied by raising capacity of the adjacent petrochemical complex.
The company is  also exploring the possibility of expanding capacity at its Koyali refinery in Gujarat from 13.7 million tonne to 18 million tonne, at a cost of about Rs 5,500 crore. IOC currently has the refining capacity of 65 million tonne, which is being expanded to 80 million tonne.

Moily said India's refining capacity will rise to about 333 million tonne by the end of 2022, from 215 million tonne at present. ‘With grass-root refineries at Paradip (15 million tonne) and Nagarjuna Oil Corp's Cuddalore unit (6 million tonne) and expansion of some of the existing refineries, the total refining capacity is expected to touch around 271.2 million tonne by the end of the current 12th plan period (2017). Further, it is expected to go up to 332.9 million tonne at the end of 13th Plan,’ he said. As part of integrating petrochemical value chain and enhancing value from the Naphtha Cracker at Panipat, SBR project envisages production of Styrene Butadiene Rubber from the Butadiene feedstock available from the Naphtha Cracker.

The project is being executed as a joint venture — Indian Synthetic Rubber Ltd (ISRL)— between IOC, Marubeni of Japan  and Taiwan's TSRC.
‘Synthetic rubber consumption has increased due to the rapid industrialisation of the Indian economy. The tyre sector is the largest end-use sector for synthetic rubber in India,’
Moily said.
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