Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd’s planned $4 billion refinery at Ratnagiri in Maharashtra would depend on lifting of environmental moratorium on projects in that region, Parliament was informed today.
HPCL plans to set up a 9 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) greenfield refinery in Ratnagiri district of Maharashtra, Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas R P N Singh said in a written reply in the Lok Sabha.
Details feasibility study for the project was being carried out and land acquisition activities have been initiated. HPCL has also submitted application for environmental clearance.
“However, the Ratnagiri district is under environmental moratorium till December, 2012. The feasibility of the project will therefore depend on lifting of environmental moratorium,” he said.
HPCL had originally conceived a 15 MTPA unit near Chiplun (Ratnagiri district) by 2016—17 but later scaled down the size to 9 MT capacity that could be doubled to 18 MT by 2020.
This would be the company’s third refinery as at present it has units at Mumbai and Visakhapatnam with combined capacity of 14 MT. Vizag’s capacity will be increased by another 9 MT to 15.5 MT.