State-owned Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL) has lined up an investment of ₹1.1 lakh crore in the next five years to expand its refining, marketing, petrochemicals, pipeline and natural gas businesses.
Chairman D. Rajkumar said, “It won’t be on refining expansion alone. For Petchem, we will invest ₹20,000 crore. Another ₹20,000 crore for upstream business. For marketing, we have allocated ₹30,000 crore, and ₹6,000 crore in expanding pipeline capacity."
The company plans to invest ₹22,954 crore to expand its Numaligarh refinery from capacity of 3 metric million tonnes per annum (mmtpa) to 9 mmtpa.
“This will be the largest investment in that part of the country. We are laying a pipeline from Paradip to Numaligarh to source crude for the refinery,” Mr. Rajkumar said.
In a bid to expand its petrochemicals capacity, the company is setting up a petrochemicals project in Rasayani at a cost of ₹25,000 crore.
The company has set aside ₹20,000 crore to invest in its upstream business. Most of it will go towards the Mozambique gas fields.
In marketing, the investments will be aimed at increasing BPCL’s retail market share to 33% from 27% now.
