Essar Oil today said it has commissioned two more units as part of its Rs 8,300-crore expansion of its Vadinar oil refinery capacity to 18 million tonne.
Essar said with the commissioning of Vacuum Gas Oil Hydrotreating Unit and Sulphur Recovery Unit, only the one unit, the Delayed Coker Unit, remains to be commissioned.
"The (expansion) project is now just days away from being fully completed which will expand the capacity of the refinery to 18 million tonne and enhance complexity to 11.8 (from 6.1 currently), which is amongst the highest in the world," the company said in a statement here.
Sulphur recovery unit will help the refinery recover 99.9 per cent of sulphur in acid gases. The SRU plays a key role in helping the refinery meet the latest emission norms. Addition of a new SRU to the refinery configuration will also enable EOL to process sour and opportunity crudes.
C Manoharan, Head of Refinery, Essar Oil, said, "With a capacity of 6.5 million tonne, the VGOHDT at the Vadinar refinery is among the largest units of its kind. It will help the refinery produce low sulphur, high octane gasoline (petrol). The unit is also capable of producing naphtha, kerosene and gas oil (diesel)."
"With this commissioning, Essar Oil's capital expenditure programme is beginning to taper off. The company will see substantial pick up in revenue and profitability going forward," the statement said.
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Alongside the expansion, an optmisation project is also underway at the Vadinar refinery that will further increase the capacity to 20 million tonne by September 2012.
The capacity expansion, complexity enhancement and subsequent optimisation will give the Vadinar refinery the capability to process over 80 per cent heavy and ultra-heavy crudes, which are lower cost than light crudes, Essar said.