MRPL will not enter petrol and diesel retailing because of under recoveries , according to P. P. Upadhya, Managing Director of MRPL (Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd). He was addressing the members of the Institution of Engineers and Institution of Valuers in Mangalore on Tuesday.

“We will not pursue further in retail marketing unless clear picture is available on under recoveries from the Government side,” he said.

Stating that MRPL is a standalone refinery, he said it has the approval from the Government for 500 retail outlets in the country. It did not pursue that because of under-recoveries in that sector. Under-recoveries of oil marketing companies are partly compensated by the Government, upstream companies and the marketing companies themselves, he said.

“Being a standalone refinery, we don’t get that facility. Therefore, we have not proceeded with retail outlets. Symbolically, we have kept two retail outlets in Karnataka,” he said.

On sanctions on Iran and its impact on crude import, Upadhya said a majority of the crude to MRPL comes from Iran. The refinery configuration mainly depends upon Iran crude.

Stating that the Government is trying to help out MRPL in this issue, he said it (Government) is trying to work out some modalities to give insurance cover to bring crude from Iran.

“In July, we hardly got any crude from Iran,” he said.

M. Venkatesh, Group General Manager (Project), MRPL, who was present on the occasion, said the phase-III expansion of the refinery project does not have cost over-run. Both phase-III expansion and polypropylene projects are within the stipulated cost. It is important to maintain the cost for mega projects like this. However, there is some time over-run, he added.

>vinayak.aj@thehindu.co.in

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