IOC invests Rs 3,000 cr to upgrade Haldia refinery for BS-VI fuel; says consumers need not pay higher prices for clean fuel initially

Kolkata: State-owned Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) has made an investment of around Rs 3,000 crore to upgrade its refinery at Haldia to meet BS-VI emission norms, an official said on Thursday. The oil marketing PSU will invest another Rs 388 crore for setting up a grassroot bottling plant at Kharagpur, diesel exhaust fluid (DEF) plant at Budge Budge and lube blending unit at Paharpur in West Bengal. [caption id=“attachment_5320661” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representatiional image. Reuters[/caption] “IOC has made an investment of Rs 3,000 crore for upgrading the refinery at Haldia for the manufacture of petrol and diesel to comply with BS-VI emission norms,” Pritish Bharat, ED (West Bengal, Sikkim and A&N), said. The new norms will come into force from 1 April. He said the new BS-VI compliant fuel will have very low sulphur content as compared to BS-IV petrol or diesel. The company has incurred a total expenditure of around Rs 17,000 crore across its refineries in India to manufacture BS-VI compliant fuel, Bharat told reporters here. “All the retail outlets of IOC will be ready to supply BS-VI fuel from 1 April,” he said. The official said IOC will be investing Rs 163 crore to set up a new bottling plant at Kharagpur with a proposed capacity of 120 mtpa, which will be commissioned by 2021. The company is also coming up with a DEF plant at Budge Budge at an investment of Rs 75 crore, Bharat said, adding, the new type of fuel will be required to be used by heavy commercial vehicles for reducing emission of nitrogen oxide. IOC will be investing Rs 150 crore for a modern lube blending unit at Paharpur in the southern outskirts of the city, he said. To a query, Bharat said initially, customers will not have to pay a higher price for purchasing BS-VI compliant fuel. He said IOC has awarded contracts to two private players for setting up compressed bio-gas plants in the state. Besides plans to automate all its retail outlets, the company will also augment its LPG distributor network. For IOC’s various pipeline projects in West Bengal, it will invest an aggregate amount of Rs 3,352 crore, Bharat added.