Indian Oil looks to invest ₹1.75 lakh cr for expansion, says chairman Singh
Indian Oil Corp. (IOC), the nation’s largest oil firm, plans to invest ₹1.75 lakh crore to nearly double refinery capacity, boost petrochemical production, expand gas business and lay new pipelines to become a vertically integrated company, its chairman Sanjiv Singh said.
It plans to raise capacity to turn crude oil into fuels like petrol and diesel to 150 million tonnes per annum by 2030 from the current 80.7 million tonnes. The company currently owns and operates 11 out of the 23 oil refineries in the country.
“As the leading refiner in the country and a dominant player across a diverse portfolio of offerings in energy, IOC is focussing on all emerging opportunities for organic and inorganic growth through vertical integration and strategic diversification, besides pursuing value-creating research areas,” Singh said in the company’s latest annual report.
As part of this, projects costing ₹32,000 crore are in various stages of execution and plans are underway for implementing more projects costing about ₹1.43 lakh crore, he said.
Singh said plans to nearly double refining capacity by 2030 include “greenfield refineries of subsidiary Chennai Petroleum Corp. Ltd (CPCL) and the proposed Ratnagiri Refinery & Petrochemicals Ltd (RRPCL), apart from numerous brownfield expansions.”
RRPCL is building the world’s largest integrated greenfield refinery-cum-petrochemicals complex with a capacity of 60 million tonnes per annum. The project is being executed in partnership with stateowned BPCL and HPCL along with Saudi Aramco and ADNOC of UAE.
“Several pipeline projects with a combined capital expenditure of over ₹20,000 crore are under implementation. Upon completion, IOC’s pipeline network would expand to about 20,000km in length,” he said, adding a 69km pipeline is also being laid to transport petroleum products to Nepal.