(TH)
The major units commissioned recently at BPCL-Kochi Refinery under Integrated Refinery Expansion Project (IREP) are designed to enhance the company’s refining capacity by six million tonnes.
“We have mechanically completed the entire work for IREP that began in 2013 by commissioning five units out of the total nine units. This involves new crude distillation unit of 10.5 million tonnes capacity, the diesel hydro treater unit and a vacuum gas oil hydrotreating unit to remove sulphur from diesel and petrol etc,” said Prasad K Panicker, Executive Director.
Remaining projects
The remaining projects such as delayed coker unit to recover value-added products from refinery residue steams, petro FCCU for producing feedstock for petrochemical complex and sulphur recovery unit for recovering sulphur are under commissioning. Other units of IREP such as naphtha hydrotreaing and isomerisation will be completed in the next 2-3 months, he told BusinessLine in an interaction.
The refining capacity has already gone up from 9.5 million tonnes and the company, this year, will process 14 million tonnes of crude compared to last year’s 11.8 million tonnes. The gross refining margin will also go up by $3.5 to touch $8.9 a barrel, thereby increasing profitability.
