HPCL-Mittal Energy (HMEL), a joint venture of state-owned Hindustan Petroleum Corproaand steel czar Lakshmi Mittal, today announced commissioning of $4 billion refinery at Bathinda in Punjab.
The 9 million tonne a year (180,000 barrels per day) Guru Gobind Singh Refinery at Phullokari, Bathinda has become fully operational and started commercial production of fuel, an HMEL press statement said here.
HPCL and Mittal Energy Investment Pte Ltd, Singapore - a Lakshmi N Mittal Group company, hold 49% stake each in HEML while the remaining 2% interest is held by financial institutions.
"The GGSR refinery is an energy efficient, environmental friendly, high distillate yielding complex," it said adding the unit began refining crude oil in August last year and has now achieved commissioning of the entire project.
Commenting on the successful commissioning, Mittal said: "The venture has leveraged strengths of each partner and combined best practices from both sectors. To build a world class asset, we brought leading practices in project management, decision making and corporate governance to the table, executing the project on schedule."
Engineers India was the Project Management Consultant. The project was financed by a consortium of Indian banks led by State Bank of India, it said.
HMEL Chairman and HPCL Chairman and Managing Director S Roy Choudhury said: "GGSR has come up in record time.... This refinery will help in meeting the growing Indian demand and more particularly help in bridging the large demand-supply mismatch of petroleum products faced in the northern region of the country."
The unit had achieved the first liquid sales in December with dispatch of kerosene and the first solid sales last month with sale of petroleum coke.
The refinery has high Nelson Complexity Index which will enable maximising value added products even from heavy/sour crudes.
Crude oil to the refinery is ferried through a 1,014-km pipeline from Mundra in Gujarat where the oil is imported from abroad.
The refinery is a zero bottom plant, with a very high Nelson Complexity Index.
