(MENAFN- Muscat Daily) India's public-sector company Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) plans to more than double the capacity of the Bina refinery a joint venture between BPCL and Oman Oil Co (OOC) in Madhya Pradesh state.
BPCL is planning to expand the refinery's capacity to 15mn tonnes from the current 6mn Shivraj Singh Chauhan Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh said on Saturday according to media reports.
Chauhan was talking to a group of reporters after meeting three federal ministers including Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan in connection with a global investors summit to be held in October. 'We met today and discussed about ushering in industrial growth in the state and it was discussed to increase the Bina refinery's capacity to 15mn tonnes from 6mn tonnes at present.'
Pradhan said 'A joint group of officials from both the state government and the ministry will meet again over this issue. We also discussed the supply of LPG gas directly to homes through pipelines in cities including Bhopal Gwalior and Ujjain [in Madhya Pradesh].'
OOC holds a 26 per cent stake in the Bharat Oman Refineries Ltd (BORL) joint venture which owns the Bina refinery.
BPCL has announced that it will invest around R450bn (RO2.85bn) in its various projects in refining marketing and exploration over the next four years. This would include R29bn for expansion of Bina refinery's capacity from 6mn tonnes per annum to 8mn tonnes BPCL chairman and managing director S Varadarajan said recently. BPCL is also exploring the option of an initial public offering (IPO) for the Bina refinery after kicking off the expansion in 2015.
BPCL chairman S Varadarajan
'We are fully geared to meet future challenges and are confident of surpassing targets and market expectations' Varadarajan said.
Earlier this year BPCL decided to opt for a module-wise capacity expansion of the Bina refinery on account of cash constraints and less-than-expected returns from the refinery. Under the plan BORL will invest smaller amounts to set up smaller modules of 2mn tonnes per annum stabilise the new capacity generate sufficient returns and invest the returns in stetting up the next module.
OOC has stakes in six oil refining and marketing companies of which three are in Oman one in India (BORL) one in China and another in Hungary.
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