Numaligarh Refinery Capacity Expansion To Be Completed By Year End: Chairman

Numaligarh Refinery Ltd (NRL) will for the first time start processing imported crude oil after its capacity expansion to 9 million tonnes per annum from current 3 million tonnes is commercially completed by end of the year, Oil India chairman and managing director Ranjit Rath said.

NRL, a subsidiary of Oil India, currently uses mainly domestic crude as feedstock for making fuels like petrol and diesel.

"First crude-in happened on December 31 and is on track for the staged completion of the expansion by the year end," he said on the sidelines of India Energy Week here.

Crude-in is nothing but first barrels of raw material being fed into the main processing unit for test runs and commissioning of the facilities.

The ₹33,901 crore project involves installing a 6 million tonnes per annum capacity Crude Distillation Unit (CDU) and associated crude oil terminals and pipeline considering processing of Arab Light and Arab Heavy crude oil (30:70 ratio).

"It will be a staged commissioning and the entire project will be commissioned by December 2026," he said.

After the commissioning, NRL will process imported crude oil as domestically available feedstock is not sufficient. The required additional quantity of crude oil is planned to be imported through Paradip Port in Odisha. A cross country pipeline of around 1,640 km has been laid from Paradip Port to Numaligarh for transporting imported crude.

"We have an MoU with Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) to help in sourcing of crude," Rath said adding NRL can process more than 100 crude assays.

He said BPCL will be the main importer of crude oil for NRL.The expansion project also involves setting up of a 360,000 tonnes Poly Propylene Unit (PPU) and its associated facilities at a cost of ₹7,231 crore.

While the refinery expansion will help meet the growing demand of auto fuels in East and North-East Region as well as create surplus for export to neighbouring countries like Myanmar and Bangladesh, the propylene unit will help catalyze downstream industries in plastics, packaging, automotive components and consumer goods in the region.

NRL currently exports fuels to Bangladesh via the India-Bangladesh Product Pipeline, and to Bhutan through its marketing partner, BPCL.

"Exports to Bangladesh are continuing without any problem," he said.

Asked about payments, he said all payments are being made on time. "There is no backlog."

As part of its long-term growth strategy, NRL is looking to strengthen its core capabilities, including developing a wider logistics infrastructure, building high-capacity grid connectivity to ensure reliable power, increasing its renewable power footprint in its energy portfolio, and diversifying into specialty chemicals and active pharmaceutical ingredients.

The company is developing a 50,000 tonnes per annum bioethanol plant using bamboo as feedstock.