Although construction is nearly complete of the 180,000 b/d Guru Gobind Singh refinery near Bathinda in the Indian state of Punjab, commissioning has been delayed (OGJ Online, May 11, 2011).
Hindustan Petroleum Corp. Ltd., Mumbai, which is building the zero-bottoms refinery in a joint venture with Mittal Energy Investment Pte. Ltd., Singapore, says commissioning will occur in the second half of its current fiscal year, which ends in March. Earlier this year it had projected start-up by July.
In an earnings announcement, HPCL said commissioning is complete of the refinery’s crude distillation and vacuum distillation units and of a single-point mooring system and terminal at Mundra, Gujarat. A 1,014-km pipeline laid to carry crude from Mundra to Bathinda in conjunction with the refinery project is operational, it said.
