Indian Oil Corporation achieved a refinery run of 88.6 per cent for the first quarter of the current fiscal compared to 68.5 per cent in the same quarter of FY21, its Chairman, Shrikant Madhav Vaidya, said on Friday at the company’s 62nd Annual General Meeting.

He added that the sales volume of petrol has already crossed pre-Covid level, with diesel likely to do the same in the next 2-3 months, around Diwali.

Rising demand

Vaidya said forecasts by various agencies see Indian fuel demand climbing to 400-450 million tonnes by 2040, from the present 250 million tonnes.

“This offers enough legroom for all forms of energy to co-exist,” Vaidya said. He added that the company is aggressively rolling out new projects to meet the demand surge which translates into refining capacity expansion of over 25 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) and an investment commitment of close to ₹1 lakh crore over the next 4-5 years.

Integration and diversification

In a bid to strengthen the company’s long-term future, the management is focusing on optimally integrating current refining processes to yield more chemical products per barrel of oil, which will intensify petrochemical and lubricant integration leading to a diversified product portfolio and profit maximisation.

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“In fact, integration projects, like the upcoming Styrene Monomer Project at Panipat or the Lube Integration Project at Gujarat Refinery will also reduce India’s import dependence and strengthen the promise of an Aatmanirbhar Bharat. Let me also underline here that our focus will be on green energy to power new projects and refinery expansions,” Vaidya said.

Indian Oil is working on a range of scalable alternative energy options to realise its vision of becoming a global energy giant. Various solutions around CNG, LNG, H-CNG, biofuels, hydrogen and e-mobility are being explored to meet the emerging energy needs of the nation, said Vaidya.

He said the company will team up with Malaysia’s state-run oil and gas firm Petronas to expand the business scope of their existing joint venture company, IndianOil Petronas to include LNG terminals, CNG stations, CGD projects, CBG business, and retailing of transportation fuels.

Green energy

Vaidya said Indian Oil will build the nation’s first ‘Green Hydrogen’ plant at Mathura Refinery. He added that the current project at Mathura Refinery will pioneer the introduction of green hydrogen in India.

“Our Hydrogen CNG (HCNG) experiment in Delhi, wherein we converted 50 CNG BS-IV buses to run on HCNG fuel, has revealed significant benefits in reducing exhaust emissions and improving the fuel economy. With the bulk of the transportation fleet consisting of BS-IV compliant buses, this is a promising development for improving the air quality of our cities,” Vaidya said.

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He said the company is also in the process of setting up one-tonne per day capacity pilot plants based on four innovative hydrogen production technologies. It will operate 15 fuel cell buses in the Delhi NCR region along with Tata Motors. It will also seed Hydrogen Mobility by commoditising surplus quantities of hydrogen available at the Gujarat refinery with a dispensing facility for hydrogen powered buses.

“With the addition of solar photovoltaics capacity of around 6 Mega Watt (MW) during the year, the total solar power capacity is now over 65 MW. Moreover, IndianOil has a wind power capacity of about 167 MW, taking the total power generation from renewable energy during the year close to 330 Giga Watt hours (GWh),” Vaidya added.

The company is also setting up a second (2G) and third generation (3G) ethanol plant at Panipat Refinery. The 2G plant of 100 kilolitre per day capacity will use rice straw to produce ethanol. It is aimed at addressing the critical and perturbing issue of stubble burning and will gainfully use the agricultural residue for national welfare. The 128 kilolitre per day capacity 3G ethanol plant is based on LanzaTech’s innovative Gas Fermentation Technology to gainfully convert refinery off-gases into ethanol. Both projects are nearing completion and are likely to be commissioned by the end of the current fiscal year, said Vaidya.

“To further strengthen our forays into biofuels, an agreement was recently signed between IndianOil and Verbio AG, the German biofuels giant, to set up a Joint Venture company. Another promising JV for setting up Biofuel projects with National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India Limited (NAFED) is also on the anvil. This JV would leverage NAFED outlets to market products like CBG and organic manures,” added Vaidya.

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