US firms bag most of Bina deals

US firms have clinched most of the initial consultancy and technology deals for the Rs 10,000 crore Bina refinery project (at Agasod in the Sagar district), which has come out of the drawing board after 15 years.

Equipment supplies will be from foreign firms based in the US, the Netherlands, Italy and China. Engineers India Ltd has been given the contract for open-art units for Rs 245 crore.

According to a top official of BPCL, the company will float orders for Rs 2,200 crore by December this year through global tender, which makes chances for Indian firms worse.

BPCL has started work on the project from January and is expecting to complete it by 2009. US-based Burns & Roe, an engineering consulting firm, has been roped in for a proposed Rs 500 crore pet-coke based 96-Mw captive power plant.

Other participants in the project are US-based firm UOP (it helps the world's refiners address operating challenges) for Rs 20-crore motor spirit blocks; Chevron Lummus Global (a joint venture of Chevron, a leader and innovator in hydroprocessing technology, and ABB Lummus Global) for a Rs 20 crore hydrocracker/hydrotreater unit and ABB Lummus of the US for a Rs 18 crore delayed coke plant. Netherlands-based firm Technip has been roped in for a Rs 10 crore hydrogen project.

Burns & Roe will do the evaluation process for the power plant. Global enquiries have been issued for the power plant. "We have received the bids and will place orders for equipments etc by September," said RP Singh, managing director of Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd.

BPCL and its project promoter firm Bharat Oman Refineries Ltd (BORL) have to float enquiries for the hydrocracker unit, DHDT (Diesel Hydrotreater) reactors, and bare pipes for a 983-km cross country pipeline.

The company has obtained the right to use land of a width of 30 m across the length of 983 km from Vadinar (Gujarat) to Bina.

BORL has done an expenditure of Rs 200 crore.