Vadodara: Indian Oil owned Gujarat Refinery is investing Rs 1330 crore in two phases to make proper revamp of the diesel refining unit of the around five decade old refinery based in Vadodara and will start supply of BS- IV grade of diesel and petrol from January 2017, Executive Director of the refinery, S K Dhar Gupta today informed.

For further upgrade of equipment and machinery to produce BS VI standard diesel and petrol from April 1, 2020, the Refinery will have to make additional estimated investment of Rs 2700 crore, he said.

Thus the total investment to achieve BS VI from current BS III norms will be in excess of Rs 4000 crore

Mr Gupta said that the refinery was gearing up to meet the quality improvement programme in line with the Auto Fuel Vision & Policy 2025 of the union government. The current supply of BS III standard diesel and petrol contains 350 parts per million (ppm) and 150 ppm of sulphur respectively which for BS IV was to be reduced by 1/7th and 1/5 th to uniform 50 ppm. For BS VI this amount for both diesel and petrol was 10 ppm. The reduced sulpher would make the fuel less polluting. However, achieving these reductions was a tough challenge for old refineries like ours which was established way back in October 1966.

‘We as such are ready to supply 100% BS IV petrol but without revamp, presently we are capable of producing only 80% BS IV diesel. To achieve production of 100% BS IV diesel, the refinery is investing about Rs 1330 crore in two phases. In first phase Rs 931 crore will be invested to revamp its diesel hydro treating units, DHDT and DHDS. In second phase Rs 392 crore will be invested to revamp its VGO HDT unit. However, we will be able to start supplying BS IV diesel and petrol from January 2017 only as our marketing and pipelines depots need some sweeping time to remove BS III products from tanks and pipelines,’ the ED said.

‘Gujarat refinery is also taking steps to supply BS VI petrol and diesel from April 1, 2020. As per a primary study an investment of Rs 2700 crores (+/- 30%) will be needed to meet the norms. Several new units including a Diesel Hydro Treating Unit of 2 MMTPA capacity will have to be set up for this. Though the land for the same was available within the refinery premises,’ Dhar said.

He said that the refinery would celebrate its Golden Jubilee from October 18 this year and it would continue for a year.

The Gujarat refinery which become functional on October 18, 1966 with 2 MMTPA capacity has expanded to 13.7 MMTPA as the flagship refinery of the Indian Oil. ‘The refinery made a record breaking performance in FY 2015-16 when throughput production was 13.82 MMT (more than the nameplate capacity of 13.7 MMT),’ Mr Gupta said.

DeshGujarat