Livemint | Oil minister Hardeep Singh Puri hints at reviving West Coast refinery project

Sep 15,2022

Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas, Hardeep Singh Puri hinted at reviving the stalled mega West Coast refinery project in Maharashtra on Thursday. He said no concrete proposal has come to him yet from the state or from investors while addressing an industry event.

Puri told reporters, "We have sent feelers to all and the response so far has been good. The 60 million tonne per annum project can come up anywhere in Maharashtra or any other west coast state or even in a southern state and it need not be in Ratnagiri alone."

Talking about the prospects of revival of the project he further added that, "We are also thinking of splitting the project to two or more locations but it would be best if the over ₹3 lakh crore project can come up at a single location as originally planned."

The project was jointly floated by the three national oil companies- Indian Oil, Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd (BPCL) and Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd (HPCL). World's largest oil companies, Aramco of Saudi Arabia and UAE's Adnoc were keen to pick up considerable minority stakes in the project.

Aramco and Adnoc hold 50% stake in the project, while IOC has a 25% stake. The remaining 25% is split equally between BPCL and HPCL.

The 1.2 million barrels-per-day (bpd) coastal refinery in the western state of Maharashtra was expected to be built at Roha in the Raigad district, about 100 km (60 miles) south of Mumbai. The project was put on a halt amid opposition from locals.

What is India's oil refining capacity?
As per the Petroleum Planning and Analysis Cell (PPAC) of India there are 26 oil refineries in the country out of which 20 are public sector undertakings (PSUs) and 6 are Joint ventures or private units.

According to the production data for FY21-22, public sector refineries produced 143.91 million tonnes of refined oil, and joint venture and private refinery units produced 107.30 million tonnes of refined oil. In total 26 oil refineries of India produced 251.21 million tonnes of oil.