MRPL updates Mangalore refinery expansion

Aug. 14, 2014
Mangalore Refinery & Petrochemicals Ltd. (MRPL), a subsidiary of Oil & Natural Gas Corp. Ltd., is in the final stages of completing a long-delayed expansion project at its 194,000-b/d refinery in Mangalore, India.

Mangalore Refinery & Petrochemicals Ltd. (MRPL), a subsidiary of Oil & Natural Gas Corp. Ltd., is in the final stages of completing a long-delayed expansion project at its 194,000-b/d refinery in Mangalore, India.

Progress on the third phase of the expansion and upgrading project stood at 99.74% as of July 15, MRPL said in an Aug. 13 statement announcing its latest quarterly financial results.

The company said it plans to commission a fluidized catalytic cracking unit as well as the third train of a three-train sulfur recovery unit by the end of August.

Additionally, physical progress on an integrated polypropylene unit (PP) included in the expansion stood at 96.3% as of July 15, MRPL said, adding that it expects to reach manual completion on the PP unit by October.

The Phase 3 expansion project, announced in February 2010 (OGJ Online, June 8, 2010), was designed to increase the refinery’s complexity and profitability by increasing refining capacity to 300,000 b/d as well as equip the plant to process lower-cost heavy, sour, and high-TAN crudes, according to past MRPL annual reports.

Earlier this year, MRPL commissioned a 650,000 tonne/year coker heavy gas oil hydrotreating unit (CHTU) (OGJ Online, May 15, 2014) as well as a 3 million-tpy delayed coking unit that are also part of the lPhase 3 expansion (OGJ Online, Apr. 4, 2014).