India’s public sector firms to build country’s largest oil refinery on west coast

India’s Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said that the country’s public sector oil companies, namely Indian Oil Corp. (IOC), Bharat Petroleum Corp. Ltd. (BPCL), Hindustan Petroleum Corp. Ltd. (HPCL) and Engineers India Ltd. (EIL) will invest INR 1.5 lakh crore (USD 20 billion) to build the country’s largest refinery on the west coast.

IOC, the largest public sector oil refiner, will build a 60-million tonne a year oil refinery in Maharashtra along with BPCL, HPCL and EIL, Pradhan twitted.

The 60-million-tonne-a-year oil refinery will be built in two stages: the first stage being 40 million tonnes and the second, 20 million tonnes. IOC had been been looking at the west coast to supply customers located in the west and south coast, as its refineries are mostly located in the northern part of the country. At the same time, both HPCL and BPCL have been looking at building a larger refinery because of the limitations of their Mumbai refineries.

“The Government of Maharashtra and Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas will closely work for early identification of land for refinery and finalisation of details of the project,” Pradhan said.

IOC recently started up its 15 million-tonne-a-year refinery located at Paradip in Odisha. But it is private sector-owned Reliance Industries that holds the distinction of being the largest oil refiner in India. Reliance Industries’ Jamnagar refinery in Gujarat has a capacity of 33 million tonnes a year. It has built another unit adjacent to it for the export market, with a capacity of 29 million tonnes a year.