MRPL wraps Mangalore refinery expansion project

Nov. 13, 2014
Mangalore Refinery & Petrochemicals Ltd. (MRPL), a subsidiary of Oil & Natural Gas Corp. Ltd., has fully completed the long-delayed Phase 3 expansion and upgrading project at its 194,000-b/d refinery at Mangalore, India.

Mangalore Refinery & Petrochemicals Ltd. (MRPL), a subsidiary of Oil & Natural Gas Corp. Ltd., has fully completed the long-delayed Phase 3 expansion and upgrading project at its 194,000-b/d refinery at Mangalore, India (OGJ Online, June 8, 2010).

By the close of the second quarter of financial year 2014-15, MRPL had entered all new installations involved in the expansion into operation, the company said in its latest quarterly earnings report.

The most recent units to enter service include the third train of a three-train sulfur recovery unit, a raw water treatment system, LPG mounded bullet storage tanks, and other related offsite facilities, MRPL said.

Additionally, a captive power plant (CPP) built at the refinery site as part of the Phase 3 project is operating but remains under stabilization, the company said.

Earlier in the year, MRPL confirmed start-up of other units in the Phase 3 expansion, including a 2.2 million-tonne/year fluidized catalytic cracking (FCC) unit (OGJ Online, Aug. 27, 2014), a 650,000-tpy coker heavy gas oil hydrotreating unit (OGJ Online, May 15, 2014), and a 3 million-tpy delayed coking unit (OGJ Online, Apr. 4, 2014).

MRPL also said an integrated 440,000-tpy polypropylene unit that will use LPG, light distillates, and propylene produced by the refinery’s FCC as feedstock is now 97% mechanically completed and will be commissioned during the third quarter of financial year 2014-15.

Announced in February 2010, the Phase 3 expansion project 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, MRPL said.