IOC sets war chest of Rs 40,000 cr to enhance capacity to over 100 mt

New Delhi: Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) will invest Rs 40,000 crore to expand its refining capacity to over 100 million tonnes by 2022 as the nation’s largest oil firm takes the lead to add capacity to meet India’s rising energy needs.  “As we see, (fuel) demand is expected to grow at 3.5-4 percent CAGR and we need to build capacities to meet that requirement,” said IOC Director (Refineries) Sanjiv Singh. International Energy Agency’s World Energy Outlook projects 4 percent CAGR growth in India’s fuel demand to 348 mt by 2030, from 184 mt in 2015-16. BP projects demand to be 335 mt while EIA has pegged it at 294 mt, which translates into a CAGR of 3 percent. India has a refining capacity of 232.06 mt. “All the projections clearly show that the demand will grow and unless we start investing now, we will lag,” he said. IOC will expand its refining capacity to 104.55 mt by 2022 from the current 80.7 mt per annum with an investment of about Rs 40,000 crore, he said. It is looking to scale up its Koyali refinery in Gujarat to 18 mt from 13.7 mt while capacity of the Panipat refinery in Haryana will be raised by a quarter to 20.2 mt from the current 15 mt. A 3-mtpa capacity addition each is planned for Uttar Pradesh’s Mathura and Bihar’s Barauni refineries, which will take their capacity to 11 mt and 9 mt, respectively. The recently-commissioned 15-mtpa Paradip refinery in Odisha will see a capacity addition of 5 mt while about 3 mt will be added in IOC’s Digboi and Bongaigaon refineries in the North-East, he said. Other state refiners too have planned capacity addition to meet rising demand. Bharat Petroleum Corp (BPCL) is looking to ramp up capacity to 53 mt, from 30.5 mt currently, by adding 1.6 mt to its Mumbai refinery and another 6 mt to the Kochi unit. There is a plan to ramp up capacity of Bina refinery in Madhya Pradesh by 9 mt, to 15 mt, while Numaligarh’s will go up to 9 mt, from 3 mt. Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd (HPCL) also plans to expand its Mumbai refinery to 8.2 mt from 6.5 mt and that of Vizag unit to 15 mt from 8.3 mt. While its Bhatinda refinery’s capacity will go up to 11.2 mt from 9 mt, it has plans to set up a 15-mt unit in Vizag in Andhra Pradesh and another 9-mt refinery at Barmer in Rajasthan. As for the Mangalore refinery, it is chalking up plans to increase capacity to up to 21 mt, from the current 15 mt.