The Hindu Business Line : ONGC will invest over Rs 5,000 cr in 4 years

“Of the total requirement of oil in India today, we are indigenously producing only around 28 to 30 per cent, rest is imported. In order to increase our current capacity, which is at 150 million tonnes, we will undertake the upgradation of all the refineries.”

Divya Trivedi

Ahmedabad, Oct. 1

Oil and Natural Gas Corporation of India will invest more than Rs 5,000 crore over the next four years to revamp three of their main assets and one sub-asset, said Mr A. K. Hazarika, Director, On-shore Manager to Business Line.

The instalments at Ankleshwar, Ahmedabad and Mehsana have been in use for around four decades now and need to be replaced, said a company spokesperson.

“We will change some of them and bring in new technology in other places as they have become obsolete. This will help us to improve the quality of oil that we are refining. All the changes should be completed in the next three to four years,” said Mr Hazarika, at the sidelines of the foundation laying ceremony of the company’s de-salter plant at Kheda district, Ahmedabad.

The company will invest Rs 38.8 crore over the next two years to upgrade the plant in association with Hyderabad-based contractors Sairama Engineering Enterprises. “The crude of North Gujarat is high in saline content and processing it can be a challenging job. Last year we had to pay Rs 65 crore in penalty for not being able to provide good quality of oil to the refineries. These additional upgradation will help in meeting the requirements of the purity of oil by reducing the water content in it,” he said.

Production increase

Laying the foundation stone, the Gujarat Minister for Oil and Natural Gas, Mr Dinsha Patel, said that revamp of all the 17 refineries, which work with the government, will be soon undertaken in order to increase the production of indigenous oil.

ONGC owns and operates more than 15,000 km of pipelines in India, and reported a turnover of Rs 59,848 crore for the year ended March 2008.