(TH)
The Oil Ministry’s grand plans to set up a ₹2.7-lakh-crore-plus refinery and petrochemical complex in Ratnagiri, Maharashtra, is stuck to the drawing board, seven years after it was conceptualised. An RTI filed by BusinessLine with Indian Oil Corporation Ltd has revealed that a detailed project report (DPR) for the mega project is yet to be prepared, and only a pre-feasibility study is in place. A DPR is the very core of an industrial project, and captures all the major financial and technical details.
The proposal for a coastal refinery has been under discussion in the Oil Ministry for the past seven years. In 2010, oil marketing major Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL) took the the initiative to set up the refinery, but it ran into land acquisition issues. When the Modi government came to power in 2014, the scope, capacity and investments of the coastal refinery were further expanded. In December 2015, at an industry event in Mumbai, Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Dharmendra Pradhan announced plans for a mega refinery.
The project for a 60 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) integrated refinery-cum-petrochemical complex, planned at Babulwadi village in coastal Ratnagiri district, is to be jointly executed by IOCL, HPCL and Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd. IOCL is the lead project manager. However, a number of crucial questions remain unanswered, the most important being the criteria based on which the site was selected. Babulwadi village is just 15 km away from Madban village, the primary site for the Jaitapur nuclear power project.
