The US Trade and Development Agency (USTDA) has awarded a grant to India’s public-sector refining firm Indian Oil Corp. Ltd. (IOC) to fund a feasibility study that will recommend technology options for the ongoing modernization of the operator’s nine refineries.
The grant comes in support of IOCL’s efforts to increase operational efficiency, reduce emissions, and expand production of cleaner fuels at its refineries in order to meets India’s more-stringent environmental standards, USTDA said.
The grant award follows IOC’s participation in a USTDA reverse-trade mission that brought Indian energy officials to the US for meetings and site visits with US companies focused on refinery modernization solutions, the agency said.
Specifically, the feasibility study will include a market, technical, economic, and financial analysis of advanced technologies to help IOC identify solutions for converting petcoke byproducts from its refineries into cleaner chemical products and fuels, IOC said.
US firms interested in the opportunity to conduct the USTDA-funded feasibility study are invited to submit proposals to the Federal Business Opportunities’ (FBO) web site following FBO’s forthcoming formal announcement of the opportunity, USTDA said.
The agency disclosed neither the value of the grant nor a timeframe for when FBO formally will begin accepting proposals for the project.
Counting its majority interest in subsidiary Chennai Petroleum Corp. Ltd.’s two refineries, IOC holds a combined 80.7 million tonnes/year of refining capacity with control of 11 of India’s 23 refineries, including: Digboi, 650,000 tpy; Guwahati, 1 million tpy; Koyali, 13.7 million tpy; Barauni, 6 million tpy; Haldia, 7.5 million tpy; Mathura, 8 million tpy; Panipat, 15 million tpy; Bongaigaon, 2.35 million tpy; Paradip, 15 million tpy; Chennai, 10.5 million tpy; and Narimanam, 1 million tpy.
Contact Robert Brelsford at [email protected].