Bharat Oman Refineries (BORL), a joint venture of state-owned Bharat Petroleum Corporation (BPCL) and Oman Oil Co, will start commercial production from its newly built Bina refinery in Madhya Pradesh by mid-February.
The 6-million tonnes a year unit will "start producing fuel by February 15", a company official said. "We are trying to get Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to inaugurate the refinery."
The refinery started operations last June and "sequentially commissioning" of unit would be completed by the end of this month.
The official said BORL plans to expand the annual capacity of its newly built Bina Refinery to 15 million tonnes by 2016-17.
The Rs 11,397 crore Bina Refinery started its main unit -- the Crude Distillation Unit (CDU) -- on June 29.
"All other units of the refinery are being commissioned sequentially and full commercial production should start by mid-February," he said.
Once it is fully commissioned, BORL would go in for a pre-feasibility study for expansion. An investment decision would be made based on the findings.
OCC holds a 26 per cent stake in BORL, while the rest is with BPCL.
Although the 6-million tonnes per annum Bina Refinery was to be mechanically completed in December, 2009, it could not start processing crude oil as state-owned BHEL had not completed a 99-MW captive power plant on time.
BHEL was to set up a captive power plant at the refinery by May, 2009, but implemented the project a year late. Besides supplying power to the refinery, the 99-Mw unit was also meant to provide steam for conversion of crude oil into petroleum products.
While nearly half of the refinery output will be diesel, it will also produce 0.6 million tonnes each of petrol and jet fuel. All the products produced would be for sale within the country.
"However, if there is an excess of naphtha that is not sold in India, it will be exported," the official said.
Crude oil for the refinery is being imported mainly from Saudi Arabia. BPCL has already contracted 0.5 million tonnes of crude oil from Saudi Arabia to start the refinery.
BORL has laid a 1,000-km-long pipeline from Vadinar, in Gujarat, to Bina to bring crude oil to the refinery.
BPCL currently owns a refinery with an annual capacity of 12 million tonnes in Mumbai and a 9.5-million tonnes unit in Kochi. It also owns a majority stake in the 3 million tonnes a year Numaligarh Refinery.
