05/28/2013 NEW DELHI–India’s Hindustan Petroleum Corp. Ltd. (HPCL) has unshelved a plan to build an estimated 500 billion rupees ($9 billion) refinery/petrochemical complex at Visakhapattanam in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh.
The project was earlier planned by a five-way alliance of HPCL, Mittal Energy Investments, Total S.A. (12027.FR), gas utility GAIL (India) Ltd. (532155.BY) and Oil India Ltd., for an export-oriented refinery but was later put on hold in 2010 as the economy slowed. The proposed project has a capacity of around 15 million tons per annum, or about 300,000 barrels a day.
Mr. Roy Choudhury, the company chairman, said HPCL anticipates rising demand for fuel products in India and has planned to raise overall refining capacity to 42 million tons or 840,000 bpd by 2020.
Hindustan Petroleum currently has two refineries–an 8.3 million tons per annum or about 166,000 barrels a day refinery in Visakhapatnam and a 6.5 million tons per annum or 130,000 barrels a day refinery in Mumbai. It also has a stake in the 9 million tons or about 180,000 barrels a day refinery at Bhatinda in northern Punjab state in a joint venture operated by Mittal Energy Investment Pte Ltd., Singapore, and part owned by led-by steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal.