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Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd (MRPL) has said that commissioning of phase-III units will be completed by October.
Mr P.P. Upadhya, Director (Technical) of MRPL, said that BHEL has not completed the work on captive power plant. He said the first phase of captive power plant, which was scheduled for commissioning in April 2011, is now expected to be commissioned by September, a delay of 18 months.
“This has affected the commissioning schedule of units. Unless the power plant comes, the company can't take up any other activity,” he said.
A company release said here that the overall project progress in phase-III expansion was 94.70 per cent as on May 15. The company commissioned the primary crude processing unit, crude distillation and vacuum distillation unit and other offsite facilities of the phase-III on March 25.
Other units such as diesel hydro-treating unit and hydrogen generation unit are under commissioning. The balance units are scheduled for commissioning progressively from June. Last of the unit is expected to be completed by October, it said.
The objective of the phase-III expansion is to expand the processing capacity of the refinery by additional three million tonnes per annum, and to upgrade the low-value products into high-value products. The aim is also to process cheaper crude oil.
The company's single point mooring facility at New Mangalore Port Trust would be completed by July, Mr Upadhya said.
IRAN IMPORT
MRPL will cut down its dependence on crude oil imports from Iran to 5 million tonnes (mt) in 2012-13 from 6.2 mt in 2011-12. The refiner bought 7.34 mt from Iran in 2010-11.
“We are anticipating that there may be some disruption in supplies from July. So, we are bringing down our dependence on Iran,” Mr U.K. Basu, Managing Director of MRPL, told reporters in New Delhi.
When asked if there may be any increase in sourcing from Iran if international pressure on the oil producer eases, Mr Basu said: “We have certain spot percentage of crude oil that may be replaced or if we can process more than 14.4 mt, then we may source from Iran.”
Talking about insurance of oil cargoes coming from Iran, Mr Basu said: “This (insurance) is a problem. We are discussing with government.”
The decrease in crude oil import from Iran would be made up by more supplies from Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Kuwait.
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