BPCL commissions crude distillation unit at Mumbai refinery

Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) commissioned a new crude distillation unit (CDU) at its Mumbai Refinery on December 28, 2015 to ensure cleaner environment and efficient use of energy with lower emissions and reduction in energy consumption. The sulphur dioxide emission from this new unit would be less than 10.5 mt/d - the lowest in the country among all the refineries. Tightly heat integrated with furnaces of higher efficiency, the reduction in energy consumption in terms of liquid fuel equivalent (LFE) is expected to be about 30 percent which results into estimated savings of Rs 128 crores per annum on fuel consumption.
 
BPCL’s Mumbai refinery was commissioned in 1955 by Burmah Shell Refineries Ltd with a capacity of 2.2 million metric tonne per annum (MMTPA). Post nationalisation in 1976, the refinery has progressively expanded through low cost revamps and adoption of new technologies. Currently, it has an installed capacity of 12 MMTPA with three crude & vacuum distillation units with matching secondary processing and treatment facilities.
 
The new integrated crude & vacuum distillation unit, having capacity of 6 MMTPA and built with an estimated a cost of Rs 1419 crores, will replace old crude and vacuum units.
 
The integral part of this new CDU is its superior design and safety features. This has resulted in significantly lesser number of equipment as compared to older units and facilitates better turnaround management during shutdown and routine maintenance. The unit is designed with the latest safety features like blast proof control room and closed drainage system thus making it an efficient, intrinsically safe and sustainable unit with higher distillate yield of 3 percent and thus contributing to higher refining margins.
 
Looking ahead, the stabilisation of this unit would help in dismantling the old 1955 CDU units thereby creating space for refinery modernisation to meet future auto fuel norms and other profitability enhancing projects.
 
Meanwhile, during a meeting between Dharmendra Pradhan, Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas, and Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis, the minister proposed that public sector oil marketing companies (OMCs) would like to set up a new refinery in Maharashtra. The proposed refinery will be in addition to the two refineries of HPCL and BPCL (with combined capacity of 20 MMT) in Mumbai. It may be noted that Maharashtra consumes about 18 MMT of petroleum products per annum which is going to increase in the coming years.