The mechanical completion and commissioning of the prestigious Guru Gobind Singh oil refinery with an annual capacity of nine million metric tonnes is scheduled for early 2011. Already 44 per cent of the work for the 11 units of the Rs.19,000-crore project has been completed.
This was claimed by the Chairman and Managing Director of the public sector petroleum major HPCL, Arun Balakrishnan, while talking to reporters at the project site on Friday. He is also the Chairman of HPCL-Mittal Energy Limited (HMEL), a joint venture company set up with Mittal Energy Investment, a subsidiary of the international industrial giant, the Lakshmi N. Mittal Group.
Earlier, Mr. Balakrishnan presided over the first ever “on site” meeting of the board of directors of HMEL, who also visited the different sites of the project. He claimed 50 per cent completion of the laying of the 1,014-km Kundra-Bathinda pipeline, with nearly 20,000 million metric tonnes per annum (MMTPA) capacity and a projected cost of Rs.4,000 crore.
Mr. Balakrishnan said the primary and secondary configuration of the refinery included a sulphur recovery unit, delayed coker unit and polypropylene manufacturing facilities. The refinery will also produce food grade hexane, mineral turpentine oil apart from petrol, diesel, kerosene, aviation turbine fuel, LPG, Naptha and Pet Coke.
Responding to queries, Mr. Balakrishnan denied there was any problem in running the joint venture, especially when Rs.5,300 crore had already been spent. The project is the single largest investment and first oil and gas industry to be set up in Punjab. It was first envisaged by HPCL in 1997-98, when the then Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee laid its foundation stone, when its capacity was fixed at six million MTPA and cost at Rs.10,000 crore.
After several hiccups, in July 2007, the HPCL tied up with the Lakshmi Mittal group, with 49 p.c. equity partnership by each side. The capacity was enhanced by 50 p.c. and a polypropylene unit was added. Presently 19,000 people are employed at the refinery site, and 4,000 on the pipeline construction.
