State refiners currently own 19 refineries with a total capacity of 135.066 million tonnes. Indian Oil Corp (IOC) is the market leader with 54.2 million tonnes capacity at its seven refineries. It also controls Chennai Petroleum (CPCL) that operates 11.5 million tonnes of capacity.
IOC will this year commission its 15 million tonnes refinery at Paradip, Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan told Lok Sabha here on Monday. ‘Presently, the project (being built at a cost of Rs 29,777 crore) is in last phase of completion and has achieved 96.7 per cent overall physical progress,’ he said in a written reply to a question.
Besides Paradip, Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd (HPCL) will expand its Mumbai refinery by 1.7 million tonnes to 8.2 million tonnes and its Visakhapatnam unit from 8.3 million tonnes to 9 million tonnes this fiscal. Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd (BPCL) will raise capacity of its Mumbai unit by 1.5 million tonnes to 13.5 million tonnes and Bina to 7.2 million tonnes from the current 6 million tonnes. CPCL will raise capacity of its Manali unit from 10.5 million tonnes to 11.1 million tonnes, he said.
Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd (MRPL) will expand refining capacity by one million tonne to 16 million tonnes this fiscal. Besides public sector units, India also has three refineries in private sector — Reliance Industries' 33 million tonnes domestic refinery and 29 million tonnes only-for-export units and Essar Oil's 20 million tonnes Vadinar plant.
By 2016-17, IOC will marginally raise its Haldia unit capacity to 8 million tonnes from 7.5 million tonnes currently while also expanding Mathura by 3 million tonnes to 11 million tonnes.