 "IOCL to spend Rs 1800 crore for BS-IV norms implementation at Gujarat refinery")
The move is part of the central government's Auto Fuel Vision & Policy-2025 which has called for supply of BS-IV fuels across India from April 2017 onwards.
The BS-IV norms mainly call for reduction of sulphur in diesel from 350 ppm (BS-III) to 50 ppm and in petrol from 150 ppm to 50 ppm. However, achieving 1/7th and 1/3rd reduction of sulphur in diesel and petrol, is a tough challenge facing older refineries, S K Dhar Gupta, Executive Director - Gujarat Refinery, IOCL said while adding that though cheaper and readily available crude oils have more sulphur content (sour crudes), the products from these crudes need to be lower in sulphur for environmental protection.
As part of the upgradation project for implementation of BS-IV fuel norms, Gujarat Refinery is revamping its diesel treating units including diesel hydrotreating unit (DHDT), diesel hydrodesulphurisation unit (DHDS) and vacuum gas oil hydrotreating unit (VGO-HDT) in a short time. Also, in order to be total BS-V compliant by the year 2020 new units including DHDT, gasoline sulphur treatment unit and hydrogen generation unit along with allied facilities will be set up.
The quality upgradation project will enable Gujarat Refinery to supply 100 per cent BS-IV diesel and petrol.
According to Dhar Gupta, Gujarat Refinery was originally designed to process indigenous low sulphur (sweet) crudes from North & South Gujarat. However, to meet the nation's growing energy demand Gujarat Refinery now requires to process imported crudes (mostly high sulphur), since domestic supply is limited.
Refusing to divulge project cost details, Dhar Gupta said that Gujarat Refinery was also gearing up for implementation of BS-V fuel norms by 2020. "A feasibility report is in process for the same but the project cost cannot be ascertained as of now. In terms of products from crude, Gujarat Refinery would be meeting both BS-V and VI norms by 2020. Our target for BS-V and BS-VI is December 2019," Dhar Gupta added.
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Also, in order to maintain its growth trajectory, Gujarat Refinery is also undertaking refining capacity augmentation through brownfield expansion from its current nameplate capacity of 13.7 MMT per year to 18 MMT per year and will be executed considering BS-V compliance by 2019-20.
"The capacity expansion project will include new units like Atmospheric & Vacuum distillation Unit (AVU ) of nine million metric tonnes per annum (mmtpa) capacity along with few bottom up-gradation secondary units. The expansion will lead to improvement in distillate yield thereby enabling production of more value added products from the refinery. The increase in the high sulphur crude processing capability will ensure improved gross refinery margins (GRMs) and profitability," said Dhar Gupta.
Talking about the refinery's performance, Dhar Gupta said that Gujarat Refinery had clocked operational excellence in distillate yield (high value hydrocarbon products) in FY 2014-15 achieving 80.1 per cent wt surpassing the previous best of 78.5 per cent wt in the FY 2013-14. "This feat has been achieved in spite of processing increasingly tougher crudes having lower potential of distillate yield. In present FY 2015-16, with concerted efforts towards elevating the secondary units' performance beyond the benchmark, we are targeting distillate yield at 82.5 per cent wt," Dhar Gupta said.
Meanwhile, sharing Gujarat Refinery's performance, Dhar Gupta said that the refinery's commitment towards energy conservation resulted in annual saving of about 35,000 SRFT tons of standard refinery fuel (i.e fuel having calorific value of 10,000 Kilocalories/Kg), from 17 various in-house schemes on energy conservation, implemented in 2014-15. This has helped in reducing refinery's energy intensity index (EII) to 106 from 113 achieved in 2013-14. "This year target is to achieve EII close to 103 by end of March, 2016. By now EII of 104 has been achieved," Dhar Gupta added.