India's refining sector is preparing to make important changes to enable it to meet growing demand and tightening environmental regulations.
The country will install diesel desulfurization units at nine government-owned refineries in response to a decrease in allowable diesel sulfur levels.
Meanwhile, Saudi Aramco and Hindustan Petroleum Corp. (HPC) have increased the planned capacity of a refinery they are building at Phulo Khari by 60,000 b/d. The firms will build a crude oil terminal as part of the project.
Diesel desulfurization
Two turnkey contracts worth $207 million were let to engineering firm Larsen & Toubro Ltd. (L&T), Mumbai (formerly Bombay), for the installation of hydrodesulfurization (HDS) units at Indian Oil Co. Ltd.'s (IOC) 156,000 b/d refinery at Mathura and HPC's 90,000 b/d refinery at Visakhapatnam.The addition of the HDS units is driven by a Supreme Court rule that will reduce the maximum allowable sulfur content of diesel to 0.25 wt % from 1 wt % beginning Apr. 1, 1999.
Industry observers agree that the new standard falls short of the widely accepted 0.05% international standard for low-sulfur diesel, but say that meeting the stricter specification would pose undue hardship on India's refiners.
L&T says it may receive a contract to install an HDS unit at another IOC refinery and at Cochin Refineries Ltd.'s 93,000 b/d refinery. IOC and HPC have let contracts to Italy's Tecnimont SpA and South Korea's Hyundai Engineering & Construction Co. Ltd. and Daelim Engineering Co. Ltd. for installation of HDS units at other refineries.
Expansions
Saudi Aramco and HPC have revised their plan to construct a $2.5 billion refinery at Phulo Khari, Punjab (OGJ, Aug. 25, 1997, p. 46). The planned capacity has been increased to 9 million metric tons/year (180,000 b/d) from 6 million tons/year (120,000 b/d).The joint venture project is scheduled to start up in 2003. The plant will have an atmospheric distillation unit, vacuum distillation unit, mild hydro- cracker, thermal cracker, and delayed-coker.
The refinery will process 9 million tons/year of Arab medium crude. Products will include: 4.82 million tons/year of diesel, 779,000 tons/year of gasoline, 775,000 tons/year of kerosine, 544,000 tons/year of naphtha, 312,000 tons/year of LPG, and 121,000 tons/year of aviation fuel.
The joint venture project includes setting up a crude terminal at Mundra in the western state of Gujarat, about 10 km from Navinal Island, for unloading crude tankers. The crude will be pumped to the refinery through a 1,006-km pipeline.
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