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OUR BUREAU Dharmendra Pradhan, Union Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas, on Tuesday, inaugurated Chennai Petroleum Corporation Ltd’s (CPCL) ₹3,110-crore residue upgradation project.
The value addition project, for upgradation of residue of crude oil to high value distillates such as diesel and LPG, will improve the margins and profitability of CPCL, said Pradhan.
About 70 per cent of gas and liquid distillates, with around 30 per cent petroleum coke, constitute the main products from this project. An overall increase of 700 TMT of LPG and diesel is expected on an annual basis.
“The project is a major step in improving the efficiency of the refinery, which will be able to process cheaper and high sulphur crude now. The project has created jobs for 130 people directly and more indirectly. CPCL, a subsidiary of Indian Oil Corporation, is also implementing various other projects at an investment of ₹3,000 crore,” said Sanjiv Singh, Chairman, Indian Oil Corporation Ltd.
The residue project comprises a delayed coker unit of 2.2 million tonnes a year, a coker LPG treatment unit of capacity 8.8 TPH (total petroleum hydrocarbons), sulphur recovery unit of 200 tonnes per day capacity, associated other process units, utilities and offsite facilities.
It will reduce the production of fuel oil and increase the percentage of high sulphur crude oil processing in the crude mix, resulting in lesser feed cost.
Pradhan said CPCL will be implementing a 9 million tonnes a year refinery expansion project at Nagapattinam at an investment of ₹27,000 crore.
Nagapattinam project
“We expect the State government’s cooperation for speedy implementation of the project. We have asked for some additional land at Nagapattinam. The boards of IOC and CPCL have given approvals for this project,” he said. State Minister for Culture and Tamil Official Language, Mafoi K Pandiarajan, said CPCL already has about 600 acres of land for its refinery expansion at Nagapattinam and wants another 650 acres for the expansion. Presently, CPCL has two refineries with a combined annual refining capacity of 11.5 million tonnes.
The Manali refinery has a capacity of 10.5 million tonnes and the Cauvery Basin at Nagapattinam, 1 million tonne.
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