State-run Bharat Petroleum Corporation (BPCL) will spend up to ₹36,000 crore on capital expenditure (capex) in the two financial years ending FY26, with major spends focussed on refineries, marketing and petrochemicals.

The state-run oil marketing company (OMC) will incur a capex of ₹15,000-16,000 crore in the current financial year and ₹16,000-20,000 crore in FY26.

This is part of the Maharatna company’s Project Aspire, under which it will invest ₹1.7-lakh crore till FY29 to increase refining capacity to 45 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) and add 4,000 new fuel stations, among others.

“For FY25, our capex will be around ₹15,000-16,000 crore. Major amount, around ₹4,200 crore, will go for refinery and petrochemicals. For marketing, we are going to allocate around ₹7,000 crore for various projects, including the CGD. BPRL, we plan to infuse ₹2,000-2,500 crore equity in FY25. In FY26, the capex will be around ₹16,000-20,000 crore range,” BPCL top management said in an investor call.

Major capex spending will happen from FY28 onwards, including for expansion of the Bina (Madhya Pradesh) refinery. Overall, the capex will be around Rs 1.7 lakh crore for 5-5.5 years, beginning FY24. Main capex expansion will happen for the Bina refinery. It expects to commission the petrochemicals plant at Bina by FY29.

Project Aspire

Of the total capex, BPCL will spend ₹75,000 crore on refineries and petrochemicals. It will also undertake strategic pipeline projects pouring in ₹8,000 crore, of which projects worth ₹5,000 crore have been identified.

Its refinery capacity is more than 35 mtpa, which it will expand to 45 mtpa with major additions happening at Bina, from 7.8 mtpa to 11 mtpa. Capacity augmentation at Kochi and Mumbai refineries will be around 1-1.5 mtpa.

The company will also invest ₹20,000 crore on its marketing business, and ₹32,000 crore to enhance upstream production with focus mainly on projects in Mozambique and Brazil. The investments in these two countries will depend on developments on ground.

It will invest ₹25,000 crore on gas business and ₹10,000 crore setting up 10 gigawatt (GW) of renewable energy capacities.

Capex rationale

BPCL’s domestic market sales grew 2.09 per cent year-on-year in Q4 FY24 to 13.18 million tonnes, taking its market share in petrol and diesel to 29.6 per cent and 29.8 per cent, respectively.

The CPSU expects petrol and diesel demand to grow in the near term at around 5 per cent and 1.5-2 per cent, respectively.

It will expand its network of fuel retail outlets by adding 4,000 new outlets by FY29.

Besides, the company will also expand its EV charging network to 7,000 EV charging stations by FY25. It has already added 2,443 new EV charging and battery swapping stations, taking its total to 3,135. T

BPCL will set up 26 compressed biogas (CBG) plants in the near term. It also has plans to produce 30 kilo tonnes per annum (KTPA) of green hydrogen in its refineries by 2030 to meet 10 per cent of captive demand. A pilot green hydrogen refueling station project is already under execution.

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