BRPL to set up diesel hydro plant

Indian Oil Corporation (IOC)-owned Bongaigaon Refinery and Petrochemicals (BRPL) will invest Rs 1,420 crore to set up a diesel hydro treatment (DHDT) project in Assam.

The new facility, to be installed at the company's existing refinery at Dhaligaon in the state, will be completed by September 2009.

The project is aimed at meeting the Euro-III deadline for high speed diesel (HSD) of April 1, 2010. The plant will have indigenous technology developed jointly by IOC and Engineers India.

The project will have a debt-equity ratio of 1:1. At present, the equity portion will be met via internal accruals. However, there is no proposal to issue fresh equity. The company has a crude processing capacity of 2.35 million tonne per year (or 47,000 barrels per day).

BRPL is to be forwardly integrated into petrochemicals and fibres. The government holds 74.46 per cent in the company. Its main petrochemical products are dimethyl terephthalate (DMT) and polyester staple fibre (PSF), with most of the DMT being captively consumed for PSF production. Around 80 per cent of the output is light and middle distillates.

For the last few months, BRPL has been refining more than 100 per cent of its capacity. The petrochemicals business, with 1,06,000 tonne naphtha cracker and 30,000 tonne PSF unit, is also plagued by sub-optimal capacities.

The BRPL stock registered fell by 0.66 per cent to Rs 67.40 compared with the previous close of Rs 67.85.