A Rs 25,000-crore petroleum refinery project being set up at Thiruchopuram in Cuddalore district of this state by Nagarjuna Oil Corporation Ltd (NOCL), a joint venture of Nagarjuna Fertilizers and the government's Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corporation, is expected to go on stream by 2015. This will be the first phase.
The project, 180 km from here, was delayed due to damages caused by a cyclone about two years earlier.
The proposed capacity is 12 million tonnes a year. The total investment is estimated to be Rs 25,000 crore; till end-March this year, Rs 7,400 crore had been spent. In the first phase, implementation of six mt yearly capacity will be completed. The refinery includes a captive port and power plant.
Hyderabad-based Nagarjuna Group had partnered with the state government and Tata Petrodyne to implement the project. In 2012, Singapore-based Trafigura Pvt Ltd took a 24 per cent stake for Rs 650 crore in NOCL. Another Rs 600 crore was infused by Trafigura into the construction of storage facilities and associated infrastructure through another entity, Portoil Ltd, a 80:20 joint venture between Trafigura and NOCL. This will come up on a 100-acre site near the refinery's 2,500 acres.
Commencement of the project was delayed due to damage to tanks and the port structure from Cyclone Thane, which hit the coastal districts of Tamil Nadu in 2012-13.
The project was planned in July 2001 but work started only in 2006, after all the clearances. The Union government has declared the project the anchor unit for its Petroleum, Chemicals and Petrochemicals Investment Region in the Cuddalore-Nagapattinam region. The refinery is designed for producing feedstock of Euro-III and Euro-IV standards.
