ONGC to up Tatipaka refinery capacity

Operating capacity to be doubled to 0.2 million metric tonnes this fiscal

Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) is all set to double the operating capacity of its mini-refinery at Tatipaka village in the Konaseema region. ONGC has its base office for the Krishna-Godavari (K-G) Project at Rajahmundry.

The refinery in Konaseema processes crude oil extracted from its wells and is now set to double its operating capacity from 0.1 million metric tonnes a year to 0.2 million metric tonnes by the end of the current fiscal, an ONGC official told Business Standard.

The Rajahmundry unit, which launched its drilling operations for oil and gas in 1978, has grown in leaps and bounds to the present level of productive stage, which the ONGC calls 'asset stage'.

In monetary terms, the refined oil is worth nearly Rs 60 crore a year. It registered an annual production of 2.8 lakh metric tonnes of crude oil, against an annual target of 2.32 lakh metric tonnes in 2003-04, and gas production of 1,932 million cubic metres, the official said.

The Energy Audit Group certifies the refinery, launched in September 2001, as 99.8 per cent energy-efficient and it recorded a zero-accident-rate in its operational processes.

The refinery was also awarded an ISO-14001 certificate in the year 2002 within one year of commencement of its operations. Today, it is poised to bag the ISO-9000 and OHSAS-18000 certificates. ONGC is now inching towards being the largest integrated company in oil and gas sector.

"The refinery, which has completed two-and-a-half years of operations, is producing the highest quality of products on par with international standards," the official added.

While naphtha is supplied to HPCL, which further supplies it to NFCL for fertiliser production, low sulphur heavy stock (LSHS) is supplied to BPCL for fuel purposes.

High-speed diesel (HSD) is partly consumed by ONGC's own drilling rigs in Rajahmundry and Karaikal assets and partly supplied to HPCL, IOC and BPCL. The refinery's operational capacity is designed to handle 0.0066 million metric tonnes per annum.

Prior to the setting up of the refinery in Tatipaka, the oil used to be sent to the HPCL refinery at Visakhapatnam by 50 tankers, travelling a distance of 500 km.

When a major fire broke out in the HPCL refinery in 1996, hampering transportation of the crude oil to Visakhapatnam, the oil was diverted to the Narimanam refinery. This meant another 2,500 km of transportation.

The oil refinery at Tatipaka was finally conceived as an answer to these hazardous journeys. The ONGC top brass took the revolutionary step of setting up their own refinery with an initial investment of Rs 26 crore, a loan that was paid back within a span of 15 months of the mini-refinery's operations, the official said.