Petrol and diesel supplies in Karnataka may be affected in the coming days as Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd (MRPL) has begun to shut down the refinery’s phase-III units following acute water scarcity.

M Venkatesh, Director (Refinery) of MRPL, told BusinessLine on Thursday the company began the shutdown on Thursday evening.

Following the move, diesel and petrol production will fall 50 and 30 per cent, respectively. MRPL produces around 500,000 tonnes of diesel, 100,000 tonnes of petrol and 75,000 tonnes of LPG a month. The output meets a major portion of Karnataka’s requirements.

MRPL is now using domestic treated water and the water recycled at the plant for operations, said Venkatesh.

The district administration has suspended water supply to MRPL and other industries for seven days from April 26, as the region is facing acute water shortage. MRPL had earlier shut down the FCC (fluidised catalytic cracking) and polypropylene units.

While the shutting down of those two secondary units had minimal impact on the supply of diesel and petrol, it had brought down LPG production by 50 per cent.

(The feedstock for the polypropylene plant — polymer-grade propylene — is being produced from the refinery’s upstream FCC unit.

Polypropylene is used in the manufacture of plastic and various types of moulds.)

On May 3, the district administration extended its order to suspend water supply to industries for another 10 days. It may be recalled that MRPL had stopped operations for a few days in 2012 due to similar reasons.

Meanwhile, MRPL arm ONGC Mangalore Petrochemicals Ltd has also begun to shut down its units. It has the capacity to produce 914,000 tpa of para-xylene and 283,000 tpa of benzene.

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