CPMA Member Companies
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RIL gears up to produce green hydrogen in two years
Reliance Industries (RIL) is laying down infrastructure for disbursement of green hydrogen from its proposed plant in Gujarat as it prepares to begin production of the fuel by 2025, three officials aware of the development said. The company, which has received 74,750 hectares of land parcel in Gujarat on a 40-year lease for its green hydrogen project, is tying up with original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) for supply of green hydrogen and laying the groundwork to retail the same through its Jio – BP outlets, they said. “RIL is setting up a green hydrogen dispensation infrastructure,” an industry official said on condition of anonymity.
“The company is targeting production of green hydrogen by 2025 and when that happens, it needs a ready infrastructure for offtake of that green hydrogen. There will be more such measures from RIL going forward,". RIL did not respond to an email sent on Tuesday till press time on Wednesday. The Mukesh Ambani-led company is investing $10 billion in capex for building its new energy ecosystem. Over the past seven months, it has tied up with original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to supply green hydrogen. This February, RIL and Ashok Leyland unveiled India’s first hydrogen internal combustion engine (H2ICE) technology solution for heavy-duty trucks.
Later that month, RIL with Olectra Greentech, a subsidiary of Megha Engineering and Infrastructures (MEIL), unveiled a hydrogen bus. Olectra Greentech aims at commercially launching these buses within a year. In July, RIL collaborated with Bharat Benz for India's first intercity luxury concept coach powered by hydrogen fuel cell technology.
H2ICE is a combustion engine that uses hydrogen or a mixture of hydrogen and diesel fuel. The advantage with this engine is that there is no need to make changes to the power train, or the assembly of every component that thrusts your vehicle into motion. So, the existing power train can be used with minor modifications to convert vehicles to a hydrogen vehicle. All these vehicles, RIL’s partners said, can travel approximately 400 km on a single hydrogen fill and can facilitate long-distance travel between cities on clean fuel. Hydrogen fill for this range coverage takes just about 15 minutes. These vehicles will undergo extensive trials, validation and safety trials over next 12 months, they said. Through its association with Ashok Leyland, RIL plans to retrofit the engines for Ashok Leyland's fleet of trucks before retrofitting the fleet of other service providers. RIL contracts a fleet of nearly 45,000 trucks every year to move goods for its refining and marketing operations. It wants to power them with green hydrogen.
Green hydrogen is the cleanest form of fuel when produced through renewable sources of energy. RIL aims to produce green hydrogen at $1 per kilogram by 2030. The current production economics of green hydrogen works out to be around $8-9 per kilogram as compared to less than $4 per kilograms for other traditional fuels and feedstocks. “The domestic use cases for green hydrogen will remain confined to small pilots,” said Barnik Chitran Maitra, managing partner, India & South Asia, of consulting firm Arthur D Little. “We expect the producers to sign up with global shipping firms, international transmission system operators, and international power generators which are likely to replace fossil fuel with green hydrogen over the next five years.” RIL also plans to retail green hydrogen through its Jio-BP retail outlets.
The company has around
1,500 retail outlets, which its plans to expand to 5,000. Satyakam Arya, managing director of
Daimler India Commercial Vehicles, said the BharatBenz Hydrogen Fuel Cell luxury coach
concept that it developed with RIL is the most recent example of conducting an advanced
engineering study to decipher the market requirements, product capability and practical
challenges, and use the findings in making the product and technology more robust.
“The emerging industry landscape also throws up other challenges — investment in multiple
technologies, all at the same time and on many fronts — by OEMs, for development of power
trains; by the government, for development of infrastructure and by fleet owners, who would
end up having different power trains in their fleet,” Arya said, adding that this challenge should
not be underestimated, and the enormity of it should be taken seriously.
MRPL to make calibrated investments in petrochemicals
Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd (MRPL) has said it would make calibrated investments in petrochemicals to embrace long-term changes. In its annual report for 2022-23, the company said this will shore up the revenues in the future during the period of declining returns from fossil fuels.
An integrated refinery with 25-30 per cent petrochemical intensity would require an investment of two-to-three times that of a conventional refinery. Mentioning that the present petrochemical intensity of MRPL is 10 per cent, the annual report said the company would make calibrated investments in petrochemicals to embrace long-term changes, while continuing to ensure relevance and viability of its existing assets. The expected gains of such an integration would be from feed stock availability, lower capital cost, lower operating cost, and the advantage of domestic market where significant growth is projected. “
For petrochemicals, MRPL will optimally time its investment to decouple from past and infuse capital in future. This will free it from the pressures of new situations and consequent risks of lower capacity utilisation and margin reduction that can impact cash flow,” the annual report said. The investment yardsticks would include repurposing existing units, addition of on-purpose units, greenfield petrochemical pathway, and sustainable imperatives, it said.
Annual report mentioned that the present petrochemical consumption of India is about one-third of the global average. As of now, around 50 per cent of the products of MRPL are for the road transportation sector. It said that this poses a challenge for the company. Lower demand means less need for refining to produce fossil fuels. There is a risk of contraction in profit margins when refinery capacity utilisation falls.
In contrast, demand for petrochemical feedstocks will continue to grow. The major oil-derived petrochemical feedstocks are ethane, liquid petroleum gas (LPG), and naphtha. These are primarily used in the production of polymers for plastics, synthetic fibres, and other petrochemical intermediates. Demand for these products will continue to grow with rising wealth, it said. However, India is expected to remain a bright spot for fossil fuels into the next decade. This will enable MRPL to generate capital for the next phase of investment.
The report said refineries cannot be reluctant to invest in infrastructure for the changing times,
adding, MRPL intends to be an integrated refinery of the future by capital deployment in new
pathways.
Referring to the emerging trends in biofuels and green hydrogen, the annual report said these are
early times and their costs are high. “However, the company cannot afford to ignore these
developments. The transition to the future by the company will include efforts in clean energy,
carbon footprint reduction, sustainable initiatives and effective deployment of capital resources,”
it said. It also said MRPL is dependent on oil marketing companies for much of its domestic sales.
There are plans to have 1,000 retail outlets of its own in five years, the report added.
We plan to invest ₹1.5 lakh crore in five years to expand operations: G Krishnakumar, BPCL chairman
BPCL plans to invest ₹1.5 lakh crore in the next five
years to diversify operations as it targets net zero carbon dioxide emissions
by 2040, BPCL chairman G Krishnakumar told ET's Kalpana Pathak.
The state-run oil marketing company, which
reported a consolidated profit of ₹10,644 crore in the first quarter ended June
on the back of handsome refining and marketing margins, also plans to raise up
to ₹18,000 crore in a rights issue this fiscal year, he said. Edited excerpts:
When
does BPCL plan to launch its rights issue?
To meet our capital outlay for projects relating
to net zero, we have proposed a right issue of equity capital of up to ₹ 18,000
crore. The rights issue will be completed within this financial year after
compliance on the regulatory and statutory fronts. Currently, the process for
appointment of intermediaries is underway. BPCL has set itself a net-zero
target by 2040.
What
about your five-year investment plans?
We are investing about ₹1.5 lakh crore in the next five years, which will be funded through a combination of internal generation and borrowings. This probably is more than what we did in the last 15 years. Petrochemicals, renewables, EV (electric vehicle) charging and the Mozambique LNG project will be our big bets in the coming years.
How
significant would the renewable energy segment be for BPCL in five years?
BPCL aspires to develop 1 GW renewable capacity
assets (solar and wind) by 2025-26 and 10 GW by 2040. Currently, five solar
projects across Kerala, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh are in various stages of
execution with an aggregate capacity of 45.5 MW at an investment of ₹ 245
crore. BPCL is also implementing two wind power projects in Maharashtra and
Madhya Pradesh with an aggregate capacity of 100 MW at an investment of ₹
978 crore.
The
street is expecting a fuel price cut from OMCs. Do we see that happening
anytime soon?
We are constantly reviewing the crude/product
prices and will take decisions on pricing once the international crude/product
prices are more stable. Due to this high fluctuation in crude prices and recent
OPEC+ cuts, we are constantly reviewing the crude/product prices and will take
decisions on revision in retail selling price once the international
crude/product prices are more stable ..
Alternative fuel vehicles are registering
an increase in monthly sales numbers. How far is that a challenge for BPCL's
petrol and diesel sales?
BPCL has been investing in alternative fuel
offerings in the retail network. BPCL is planning to convert 30% of its 21,000
retail outlets into energy stations in the medium to long term by offering fuelling
options like petrol, diesel, CNG, CBG, EV charging and eventually hydrogen.
MRPL becomes largest single location refinery in India.
The Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Limited (MRPL), a mini-Ratna CPSE PSU refinery based in coastal Karnataka and a subsidiary of ONGC, has become the single largest PSU-refinery (single location) in the country for the year 2022-23, a release from the company said here Wednesday. MRPL achieved this feat by processing 17.14 million metric tonnes of crude oil during the past financial year. This is also the highest-ever throughput processed by any single-location PSU refinery in India's petroleum refining history, the release said. MRPL processes 10 per cent of the total crude oil refined by the PSU petroleum refineries in the country.
Set up as a joint venture refinery in 1988 with a 3.69 MMTPA (million metric tonnes per annum) capacity, MRPL later underwent a second and third-phase expansion to raise its capacity to 15 MMTPA. The refinery configuration has a Nelson Complexity Index of 11.3, one of the highly complex PSU refineries. The MRPL petrochemical intensity is currently at 9.5 per cent, aiming to reach 15 per cent in the medium term. The Nelson Complexity Index (NCI) refers to the types of petroleum products can be produced by a refinery.
Measured on a scale from 1 to 20, the higher the value on the NCI, the more sophisticated and complex products the refinery can produce. As for petrochemical intensity, it refers to the percentage of crude oil converted directly into chemicals used to make plastic and other materials. MRPL can process more than 250 different types of crude from around the world. Crudes from the Middle East, South Asia, Europe, Russia, Africa, South America and the US are the major ones processed in the MRPL.
MRPL is capable of producing almost a full range of petroleum products
like naphtha, LPG, motor spirit, high-speed diesel, kerosene, aviation, turbine fuel, sulphur,
xylene, bitumen, along with pet coke and polypropylene. In recent times, the MRPL has taken
significant steps to build its petrochemical profile.
Its 440 KTA Novolen gas-phase polypropylene plant can produce a complete range of
homopolymer grades. Its aromatic complex can produce 0.905 MMTPA of para xylene and 0.273
MMTPA of benzene. The aromatic complex is in the Mangalore Special Economic Zone (MSEZ)
and fully integrated with the MRPL. The MRPL has ambitious plans for the retail business and it
has initiated steps to expand its coveted RO brand HiQ in 1000 locations in South India in the
near future, the release said. MRPL Managing Director Sanjay Varma said the company has made
a strong bounce back after effectively countering the challenges posed by the Covid pandemic.
ADNOC Gas inks $7-9 billion LNG supply deal with Indian Oil Corporation
https://www.offshore-energy.biz/adnoc-gas-inks-7-9-billion-lng-supply-deal-with-indian-oil-corporation/July 20, 2023
According to ADNOC Gas, the agreement, valued in the range of $7 billion to $9 billion over its 14-year term, signifies a major step forward in the partnership between the two parties. Furthermore, the UAE company said the deal marks a milestone for them as it expands the company’s global reach.This year, ADNOC Gas also signed a three-year supply agreement with TotalEnergies Gas and Power Limited, a subsidiary of French energy giant TotalEnergies, for the export of LNG. The agreement is valued at about $1.2 billion under current market conditions.
Indo Rama Synthetics starts up new PET plant in Nagpur
Name: Indo Rama Synthetics
Location: Nagpur, India
Product: Polyethylene terephthalate (PET)
Capacity (tonnes/year): 230,000
Event start: 2 June 2023
RELIANCE TOPS HURUN'S LIST OF INDIA'S MOST VALUABLE PRIVATE SECTOR COMPANIES
Billionaire Mukesh Ambani's Reliance industries is the most valuable private company in the country, as per Hurun India's 2022 Burgundy Private Hurun India 500 list. The list, which was released on Tuesday, stated that with a value of Rs 16.4 lakh crore, Reliance is India's most valuable company, followed by Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) with Rs 11.8 lakh crore, and HDFC Bank with Rs 9.4 lakh crore. Reliance is also the highest taxpayer with a payout of Rs 16,297 crore and the most profitable company with a bottomline of Rs 67,845 crore in 2022-23. The list ranked vaccine maker Serum Institute of India as the most valuable unlisted company in the country with Rs 1.92 lakh crore in value. It overtook National Stock Exchange, which was pushed to the No. 2 spot with Rs 1.65 lakh crore in value. BYJU'S with Rs 69,100 crore value came in at No.3.
The list by Burgundy Private, Axis Bank's Private Banking Business and Hurun India tracks changes in the value of the top 500 Indian companies during the six-month period (from October 30, 2022, to April 30, 2023), it said in a statement. It is a list of the 500 most valuable non-state-owned companies in India, ranked according to their value, defined as market capitalization for listed companies, and valuations for non-listed companies.
"The total value of the top 500 companies in India declined marginally by 6.4% to Rs 212 lakh crore from Rs 227 lakh crore as of October 30, 2022," it said adding the companies on the list underperformed compared to SENSEX and other global indices. The total value of the top 10 companies remains unchanged at Rs 71.5 lakh crore, equivalent to 37% of India's GDP and 31% of the total value of the 2022 Burgundy Private Hurun India 500. By absolute value, the biggest gainers were HDFC Bank, ITC, and Housing Development Finance Corporation. In comparison, eight companies in the Adani Group decreased its value by 52% or Rs 10,25,955 crore after it was hit by a scathing Hindenburg report. The report said the value of Reliance decreased by 5.1%, or Rs 87,731 crore in the last six months. While the total value of TCS increased marginally by 0.7% and HDFC Bank increased by 12.9%.
ONGC signs pact with IndianOil to explore opportunity in petrochemicals biz.
ONGC, which produces two-thirds of the nation's oil that is refined into fuels like petrol and diesel and more than half of gas that is used to make fertilisers and turned into CNG, already has two downstream petrochemical plants through subsidiaries. As nations transition away from polluting fossil fuels to low-carbon sources of energy like hydrogen and use of electricity to power automobiles, oil companies the world over are reinventing themselves. Crude oil, which is currently refined in refineries to produce petrol and diesel, is to be directly converted into petrochemicals that form building blocks for a range of plastics, paints, detergents and tires.
The demand for petrochemicals in India is projected to grow exponentially as the per capita consumption was much lower world average. Last month, Oil Minister Hardeep Singh Puri stated at a conference that the chemical market in India is projected to grow to USD 300 billion this decade from USD 178 billion. India is expected to account for more than 10 per cent of the world's growth in petrochemicals, a press statement issued by the Press Information Bureau (PIB) on May 19 quoted him as saying. IOC already has petrochemical units at most of its refineries and has big ambitions to grow the business. ONGC's subsidiary Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd (MPRL) operates a petrochemical unit in Karnataka. Its other subsidiary has a unit in Gujarat.
The firm reportedly is looking at investing Rs 1 lakh crore by 2030 to expand the petrochemicals
manufacturing capacity. This is a part of the government's larger plan to make India a major
global petrochemical hub.
ONGC's joint venture ONGC Petro additions Ltd (OPaL) and its subsidiary MRPL is to
implement expansion plans that will double the production capacity to 8 million tonnes per
annum by 2030. It is not known if the MoU signed now will lead to IOC joining those projects or
if the agreement is for exploring new projects altogether.
Indian Oil Corp to set up aviation fuel plant with LanzaJet in Haryana
The company is looking at an investment of about 23 billion rupees ($280.1 million), S.M. Vaidya said on the sidelines of an industry event in New Delhi.
The refiner is also running a pilot project for green fuel in association with Praj Industries in the western state of Maharashtra, Vaidya added.
IndianOil top bidder for Reliance's KG gas for second auction in row
IOC, the nation's largest oil firm, has walked away with half of the natural gas that Reliance Industries Ltd and its partner bp of the UK offered in the latest auction of the fuel
Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), the nation's largest oil firm, has walked away with half of the natural gas that Reliance Industries Ltd and its partner bp of the UK offered in the latest auction of the fuel used to generate power, produce fertilizer, turned into CNG and used for cooking purposes.
IOC got 2.5 million standard cubic meters per day out of the 5 mmscmd of gas auctioned last month, sources with knowledge of the matter said.
The oil refining and marketing company, which was the top bidder even in the previous auction of gas from the eastern offshore KG-D6 block of Reliance-bp, bid the volumes on behalf of seven fertilizer plants.
City gas companies including GAIL Gas Ltd, Mahanagar Gas Ltd, Torrent Gas, Indian Oil Adani Gas Ltd, and Haryana City Gas secured a total of 0.5 mmscmd of gas for turning into CNG for sale to automobiles and piped to household kitchens for cooking purposes.
State gas utility GAIL and refiner Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL) got 0.6 mmscmd each while Gujarat State Petroleum Corp (GSPC) walked away with 0.5 mmscmd and Shell another 0.2 mmscmd, they said.
Reliance-bp, which two years back reversed the declining trend in domestic gas output by bringing to production their second wave of discoveries in the KG-D6 block lying in deepsea of the Bay of Bengal, are now ramping up supplies.
Natural gas, a cleaner-burning, efficient fuel, is being seen as a transition fuel for nations to move from polluting hydrocarbons to zero-emission fuels.
Reliance-bp in the latest tender offered 5 mmscmd of gas for a period of 3 years starting June 1. Bidders were asked to quote a variable 'v' over and above the JKM price, the spot market benchmark for liquefied natural gas (LNG) delivered to Japan and South Korea.
Sources said the e-auction started on May 19 and ended on May 23 - the longest duration of an auction since the time operators were allowed to sell fuel through open tender.
At the end of the e-auction, gas was sold to 16 buyers at a price of JKM + (plus) USD 0.75 per mmBtu for 3 years, they said adding at the current JKM price of USD 9.2 per mmBtu, the price for KG-D6 gas comes to around USD 10.
This rate compares with the capped price of USD 6.5 per mmBtu that Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), the state-owned behemoth, gas for fuel produced from legacy or old fields.
Reliance-bp had in April sold 6 mmscmd of gas. IOC had walked away with almost half of the 6 mmscmd of gas sold in an e-auction on April 12 while GAIL bought 0.7 mmscmd, Adani-Total Gas Ltd 0.4 mmscmd, Shell 0.5 mmscmd, GSPC 0.25 mmscmd and IGS another 0.5 mmscmd.
In that auction too, the final bid price came at USD 0.75 per mmBtu premium over the JKM price (JKM + USD 0.75 per mmBtu), sources said.
But the bidders will only have to pay the ceiling or the cap price that the government fixes bi-annually for gas produced from difficult areas, such as deepsea and high-temperature, high-pressure (HTHP).
The ceiling price for April to September is USD 12.12 per mmBtu.
Gas produced from wells drilled below the seabed is used to produce electricity, make fertiliser, or turned into CNG for powering automobiles or piped to household kitchens for cooking as well as in industries.
In May last year, Reliance-bp had auctioned 5.5 mmscmd of incremental gas from the newer discoveries in the KG-D6 block, benchmarking it to the same JKM gas marker.
The price discovered in that e-auction came at a USD 0.06 discount to the JKM (Japan-Korea Marker) LNG price.
Prior to that, the duo had sold 7.5 mmscmd of gas at a discount of USD 0.18 per mmBtu to JKM.
Reliance has so far made 19 gas discoveries in the KG-D6 block. Of these, D-1 and D-3 -- the largest among the lot -- were brought into production in April 2009, and MA, the only oilfield in the block, was put into production in September 2008.
While the MA field stopped producing in September 2018, output from D-1 and D-3 ceased in February 2020.
Since then, Reliance-bp is investing USD 5 billion in bringing to production three deepwater gas projects in block KG-D6 -- R-Cluster, Satellites Cluster, and MJ -- which together are expected to meet about 15 per cent of India's gas demand by 2023.