Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd (MRPL) is planning to open 251 retail outlets in Karnataka and Kerala in the next few years, according to M Venkatesh, Managing Director of the company.
Addressing presspersons in Mangaluru, he said that seven retail outlets are in operations as of now. It opened a retail outlet at Gubbi in Tumakuru district of Karnataka last year. “At least 50 outlets are likely to be set up in Karnataka in the next eight months to one year,” he said.
Of the 251 retail outlets, around 190 retail outlets are planned in Karnataka, and the remaining in the northern Kerala districts, he said. Stating that the company is gearing up for the rollout of BS-VI fuels, Venkatesh said that MRPL’s BS-VI project is being executed at a cost of ₹1,810 crore. The project is expected to be commissioned in February 2020, he said.
US crude
On the company’s crude procurement plans, he said it had placed an order for a ‘Thunder Horse’ parcel from the US two days ago. MRPL is buying that grade of crude for the first time. One million barrels of ‘Thunder Horse’ crude is expected to land in Mangaluru during the first week of October, he said.
On the company’s experience with handling domestic crudes, M Vijayakumar, Director-designate (Refinery), said that the company had tested crude from Ravva oil field in the eastern coast of the country. “Ravva is similar to what we have been processing earlier from Bombay High,” he said.
The company had processed the crude from Mangala oil field in Rajasthan more than Ravva. Stating that Mangala’s is a bit heavier crude, he said the refinery has the technical configuration to handle that too.