Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee laid the foundation-stone for Indian Oil Corporation's Paradip refinery yesterday. At the occassion he said the nation was striving towards self-sufficiency.
The Rs 8,300 crore refinery, scheduled to be completed by August 2003, will be the eight refinery of Indian Oil Corporation and will be located around 120 km from Bhubaneswar.
It will be the first zero-residue refinery in the country and will include a hydrocracker unit and a delayed coker unit for maximisation of distillate, particularly jet fuel, kerosene and diesel.
IOC has employed state-of-art technologies from UOP of the US, Shell of the Netherlands and Haldor of Denmark. The refinery will produce 3,40,000 metric tonnes per annum (MTPA) of LPG, 1122,000 MTPA of naphtha, 460,000 MTPA of motor spirit, 751,000 MTPA of jet fuel and kerosene, 5209,000 MTPA of diesel and 237,000 MTPA of sulphur.
The refinery will also have gasification technology for captive power generation. A new marine terminal consisting of a single point mooring facility will be installed to receive crude oil directly from very large crude carriers in to the refinery tanks. Coastal movement of products from the refinery will be handled at Paradip port.
Vajpayee said with globalisation of economy, it was important to open doors to foreign goods. But efforts should be made to make Indian goods more competitive so that Indian exports could grow faster, he added. Vajpayee said reforms had started paying dividends as industrial production was improving in the country.
