Essar Oil today said it will almost double the capacity of its Vadinar oil refinery in Gujarat to 20 million tonnes by September, 2012.
Vadinar refinery has a nameplate capacity of 10.5 million tonnes per annum. "The refinery is operating at a throughput of 14 million tonnes," Essar Oil said in a press statement here.
The company is currently implementing a project to expand this capacity to 18 million tonnes, but has now decided to raise the capacity to 20 million tonnes instead.
"As on October 31, 2010, the Phase-I expansion (to 18 million tonnes) was 72 per cent complete and is on track for mechanical completion by March 2011, with the exception of two units that are delayed by a quarter," the statement said.
"The company has now decided to further expand the refinery’s capacity by 2 million tonnes to 20 million tonnes," it said.
The higher capacity would be achieved through optimisation of some of the refinery units at an estimated cost of Rs 1,700 crore by September 2012.
The move follows a detailed project review that identified several opportunities to de-bottleneck the refinery and revamp some of the units at an extremely competitive capital cost.
The optimisation project entails the revamp of six refinery units: FCCU (Fluid Catalytic Cracking Unit), DHDS (Diesel Hydro Desulphurisation) Unit, SWSU (Sour Water Stripping Unit), DHDT (Diesel Hydrotreater), VGO-HDT (Vacuum Gas Oil Hydrotreater) and DCU (Delayed Coker Unit).
Commenting on the optimisation project, MD & CEO Naresh Nayyar said: "There has been a significant growth in Indian demand for petro products in the last few years and we see the trend continuing over the next few years. Augmenting our refining capacity by an additional 2 million tonnes per annum will help us capture this growing demand at a very competitive capital cost."
"Based on our internal studies, the optimisation project is expected to result in a very strong economic performance for the refinery," he added.
