Indian Oil Corporation Ltd.

Capex time! IOC to spend ₹ 1 lakh crore on refinery expansion

November 11, 2021

The country’s largest refiner, Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), is increasing its capacity by 25 million metric tonnes per annum [MMTPA] and is targeting to process high-value petrochemicals in a big way. IOC will increase its overall refining capacity from about 81 MMTPA to 106 million tonnes by 2023-24, chairman and managing director Shrikant Madhav Vaidya told Fortune India.

The refining capacity of its Koyali refinery in Gujarat will go up from 13.7 MMTPA to 18 MMTPA, while capacity at Panipat refinery in Haryana will increase to 25 MMTPA from the current 15 MMTPA. A new 9-MMTPA plant, built by its subsidiary Chennai Petroleum Corp Ltd (CPCL), is coming up at Nagapattinam, Tamil Nadu. At its five-year-old Paradip refinery — the most modern refinery in India built at an investment of over ₹34,555 crore — a new ₹5,654-crore Mono Ethylene Glycol (MEG) plant is coming up. It will make IOC a major producer of textile fibres. The plant will use propylene and ethylene from off gases to make MEG, a key ingredient for the fibre.

The company will also foray into textiles, with plants coming up at textile parks near Paradip and Panipat petrochem complexes. Each of these projects will cost ₹2,000 crore each. A similar ₹5,251-crore petrochem plant is coming up at Gujarat refinery, mainly to reduce India’s dependence on butyl acrylate, a key ingredient for polyester and plastics

Indian Oil to build India’s first green hydrogen plant at Mathura Refinery

July 24, 2021

Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) is all set to build the country’s first green hydrogen plant at Mathura Refinery to meet the growing energy needs.

“Indian Oil has drawn a strategic growth path to focus on its core refining and fuel marketing businesses while making inroads into petrochemicals, hydrogen, and electric mobility over the next ten years”, Shrikant Madhav Vaidya, Chairman, IOC said in a statement. Vaidya added that the company has a wind power project in Rajasthan and the management intends use the power produced here to its Mathura refinery.

‘Key focus area’

On the integration of core businesses of Indian Oil, Vaidya said, petroleum refining and marketing with higher petrochemical integration will continue to be the company’s key focus area and it will add 25 million tonnes (mt) of refining capacity by 2023-24. He also said forecasts by various agencies sees the country’s fuel demand climbing to 400-450 mt by 2040 as against 250 mt now. There is a fresh momentum for scaling up hydrogen use across sectors globally. The company’s hydrogen compressed natural gas (HCNG) experiment in Delhi, wherein it converted 50 CNG BS-IV buses to run on HCNG fuel, has revealed benefits in reducing exhaust emissions and improving the fuel economy, said Vaidya.

Meanwhile, with the support of the Petroleum Ministry, Indian Oil is also in the process of setting up 1 tonne per day capacity pilot plants based on innovative hydrogen production technologies, and it will also operate 15 fuel cell buses in the Delhi NCR region along with Tata Motors

Indian Oil Board accords Stage-I approval for setting up the first-ever Styrene Project in India

June 30, 2021

On Wednesday, the IndianOil Board has accorded "Stage - 1" approval for implementation of India's first-ever "Styrene Monomer Project" with a capacity of 387 thousand metric tonnes per annum (TMTPA) at an estimated cost of Rs 4,495 crore, at IndianOil's Panipat Refinery & Petrochemical Complex. This project will strengthen India's focus to harness opportunities in the petrochemical sector and sync with the Government of India's "Atmanirbhar Bharat" mission.

Earlier in February 2021, the IndianOil Board approved the Panipat Refinery Expansion Project to enhance its capacity from the existing 15 MMTPA to 25 MMTPA with a CAPEX of Rs 32946 Crore. As part of the Expansion Project, a new high severity Fluidized Catalytic Cracking Unit (FCCU) of 2.5 MMTPA capacity, based on IndianOil's flagship INDMAX technology, would be set up to maximize LPG production and manufacture basic petrochemical building blocks – Propylene and Ethylene. There is a Propylene potential of around 514 KTA of in the project, which would be utilized for the production of Polypropylene (PP) through a new PP unit. The Styrene Project aims to utilize the Ethylene potential from the INDMAX Unit alongside the Benzene that is already being produced at the Panipat Complex.

Styrene is used to produce Poly Styrene, Paints & Coatings / Acrylic, Unsaturated Polyester Resins, and Elastomers such as Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS), Styrene-Butadiene Rubber (SBR) etc. Presently India's Styrene consumption is around 900 TMTPA, and the demand is expected to increase consistently over the next 15-20 years.

IOCL to invest Rs. 17,825 crore on Gujarat petchem expansion project Pravin Prashant

September 22, 2020

The project will not only increase the capacity of Gujarat Refinery from 13.7 MMTPA to 18 MMTPA but would also result in integration to petrochemicals with production of 500 KTPA Polypropylene.

IOC bets big on petrochemicals, forward integration into textile biz September

September 21, 2020

Country's largest oil marketing company Indian Oil Corporation proposes to leverage its growing petrochemical operations to expand textile business as it looks to diversify operations and offset risks associated with oil operations