The BPCL Kochi Refinery will begin the new chapter to earn the tag of Green Refinery as Rs. 500 crore would be pumped in to build a waste-to-energy plant in which agricultural and municipal waste would be converted into energy.
Union Minister for State for Petroleum and Natural Gas, Dharmendra Pradhan, said this at a function in the Kochi Refinery School organised to mark the 50th anniversary of the refinery.
Technologies are available to take this important green step and BPCL is in the process of identifying a suitable one, said Mr. Pradhan. This would be taken up as part of the company’s social responsibility project as the plant would not be giving much revenue.
The plant would be a second generation ethanol plant and the product can be utilised in blending with petrol in a ratio that does not exceed 10 per cent in the fuel.
Monetising biomass waste would be green step in tune with the requirement of the day of generating energy from waste, he said.
It is also expected to bring in a solution for the increasing waste management issues of urbanisation that the local bodies are finding difficult to handle.
The refinery, which was commissioned in 1966 by the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had henceforth grown from a capacity of making 2.5 million tonnes a year to 15.5 million tonnes a year by December 2016 when the Integrated Refinery Expansion Project (IREP) is expected to be completed.
The Rs. 24,500-crore expansion project will make it the largest refinery in the public sector that meets the fuel demands of most parts of Southern India.
He also released a coffee table book called The Midas Touch handing over a copy to P.J. Kurien, Deputy Chairman of the Rajya Sabha, the chief guest of the occasion.
Kadakampally Surendran, Minister for Electricity and Devaswoms; MPs K. V. Thomas and Innocent; MLAs V. P. Sajeechdran, Hibi Eden and M. Swaraj and P. Rajeev, former MP, participated.
S. Varadarajan, chairman and managing director, BPCLKRL, earlier welcomed the gathering.
Prior to attending the function, Mr. Pradhan visited various facilities of the refinery including the IREP work site and interacted with the workers.
