Commissioning its Rs 34,555-crore Paradip oil refinery in Odisha, state-owned Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) on Monday said it will start full-fledged production by the end of the year. "Crude processing has commenced...," the company said in a statement.
"Some of the products will require further processing in secondary units, which are also gearing up for commissioning." IOC said the whole 15-million tonne a year refinery is likely to take about 6-8 months for becoming fully operational.
The refinery is designed to process broad basket of crude, including cheaper high sulphur heavy crudes, and has an overall Nelson complexity factor of 12.2. "The refinery is capable of producing Euro-IV/Euro-V quality transportation fuel," the statement said.
Once fully operational, the refinery will produce 700,000 tonnes of LPG, 200,000 tonnes of propylene a year, 3.8 million tonnes of petrol, 380,000 tonnes of ATF and 6.9 million tonnes of diesel.
"The distillate yield from the refinery is expected to be best in class, with 81.1 per cent with no black oil production. Energy Intensity Index of Paradip Refinery is expected to be 78.6, which is in 1st quartile," the statement read. IOC said many new features at the refinery will ensure environment-friendly operation with minimum impact on the nature.
"Once successful at Paradip, IOC would establish itself in the international market for commercial use of this technology," it said. The crude oil processing at the Paradip refinery began yesterday.
Paradip will be IOC's 8th refinery in the country and is expected to help the company scale up its refining capacity to 69.2 million tonnes from the current 54.2 million tonnes per annum.
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