For a generation accustomed to the breakneck speed of the Internet Age, September 1966 lies behind a thick veil of time. The month and the year mark a point in time when the story of Kochi changed for ever with the commissioning of a standalone oil refinery.
The jubilee will be celebrated with the splendour becoming of such a momentous occasion.
But for the moment, it is to be in awe of how time flies, irretrievably, as Virgil said. Old-timers will recall the tempus fugit phrase as admonition against idleness or idle talk.
Thrust on efficiency
But the making, and then the running, of the refinery took more than talk. “It’s good that some of the old values and attitudes persist”, said a senior official of what is now a Bharat Petroleum Corporation refinery here. He was pointing to the refinery’s thrust on efficiency, precluding frills and fat. “We don’t have the traditional peons-and-drivers set-up,” he said to illustrate the point.
Built on such beliefs, the story of the refinery goes back to April 1963 when the Government of India, Philips Petroleum Company of the USA and the Duncan Brothers of Calcutta signed a tripartite agreement to build a petroleum refinery in the deep south of the country.
Thus, the former Cochin Refinery was registered in Ernakulam on September 6, 1963, with Philips Petroleum International Corporation as the prime construction contractor.
The construction work was entrusted to Pacific Procon Limited and works began in March 1964.
The first unit was ready in 29 months and the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi dedicated the refinery to the nation on September 23, 1966.
The refinery had a capacity of 2.5 million tonnes a year. It was upgraded to a 3.3-million tonne facility in 1973. The year also marked the beginning of production of liquefied petroleum gas and aviation turbine fuel. The refining capacity was increased to 4.5 million tonnes in 1984 and in 1994, the capacity was raised to 7.5 million tonnes.
Major event
The following years marked a major event for the refinery. Oil marketer and refiner BPCL had acquired Government of India’s shares in KRL in March 2001 and the refinery was amalgamated with BPCL in August 2006. The refinery underwent further expansion in 2009 with the capacity being raised to 9.5 million tonnes.
In the latest phase, coinciding with the golden jubilee year, the integrated refinery expansion project, raising the capacity to 15.5 million tonnes a year, will be commissioned. Work on the integrated refinery expansion project was inaugurated by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on January 7, 2013.
