Essar Oil has begun commissioning its $2.2 billion refinery at Vadinar in Gujarat, with the first product expected by the weekend."We have begun circulating cold crude to check systems of any fault or leakage. This process will take a couple of days, after which the actual crude oil processing will begin. First product from the refinery is expected by Friday-Saturday," a company source said.The refinery would initially produce 7.5 million tonne of petrol, diesel, LPG and kerosene, mainly for export. The 10.5 million tonne a year refinery would reach its full capacity in March-April 2007.Essar, which restarted work on the refinery in March last year, would raise the refinery capacity to 12 million tonne per annum (mtpa) in a years time and further to 16 mtpa in another year. The capacity will then be doubled by replicating the existing units.The company has already imported four cargoes totaling to 4 million barrels of crude oil and the fifth cargo of 2 million barrels was expected on November 25-26. Three more cargoes have been ordered."We are initially processing sweet crude and are importing cargoes from Algeria, Yeman, Nigeria and Middle-East," the source said.While 35-40% of the products would be exported, the refinery would also feed products to the company's 900 retail outlets. By March the number of outlets would go up to 2000.
