The Hindu Business Line : HPCL to review feasibility of Vizag project

New Delhi, Dec. 23 Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL) and its consortium partners will decide on the viability of a 14-15 million tonne a year refinery-cum-petrochemical project at Visakhapatnam, in April-May next year.

This was stated by the Petroleum Minister, Mr Murli Deora, in Rajya Sabha on Tuesday. He said due to the meltdown of the global economy and unprecedented reduction in demand of petroleum products, the viability to proceed with the feasibility study of this project will be once again reviewed in the month of April-May 2009.

“The consent from consortium partners are also still awaited to proceed with the feasibility study in view of the current economic situation,” he said.

The Minister said the pre-feasibility study for the proposed project has been completed. The feasibility study is still at the preliminary stage.

“During April-May 2009, HPCL along with its partners will once again examine the supply demand balance and carry out techno-economic evaluation of this project. Only, when it is established that the project is techno-economically viable and the consortium partners agree to proceed with the next phase of feed study of the project, HPCL will be able to work out the details pertaining to employment creation and the assistance required from the State Government,” he said.

The Andhra Pradesh government has sought support of the Central Government for provision of external infrastructure linkages to Petroleum, Chemicals & Petrochemicals Investment Region (PC&PIR) near Visakhapatnam.

HPCL had entered into an MoU in 2007 with GAIL (India) Ltd, Oil India Ltd, TOTAL France SA, and Mittal Energy Investments Pte. Ltd to explore possibility for setting up a refinery-cum-petrochemical project in the proposed PC&PIR near Visakhaptanam.