Indian Oil Corp. Ltd. (IOC) is approaching the finish lines on long-planned nameplate-processing capacity and petrochemicals production expansions underway at the operators in-country refining complexes.

In a July 31 regulatory filing to the National Stock Exchange of India Ltd. and BSE Ltd. for the 3-month reporting period ended June 30—equivalent to India’s first quarter of fiscal-year 2026-27—IOC confirmed ongoing major projects to expand crude oil processing capacities at three of the operator’s refineries were nearing completion and scheduled for startup by yearend 2026.

At its 15-million tonne/year (tpy) integrated Panipat refining and chemical complex in Haryana, India, north of New Delhi, IOC said it has reached a 94% completion rate on a project to expand the manufacturing site’s crude processing capacity by 10 million tpy.

Full commissioning of the expanded 25-million tpy Panipat refinery is scheduled for December 2026, alongside anticipated startup of a 60,000-tpy polybutadiene rubber (PBR) plant included as part of the expansion that, as of June 30, had reached a completion rate of 88.7%, according to the operator.

Officially known as the P-25 project, the Panipat refinery expansion—which aims to improve operational flexibility of the refinery to help meet domestic energy demand—includes installation of a polypropylene unit and a maleic anhydride unit as part of the operator’s plan to increase production of petrochemicals and value-added specialty products as means of elevating margins and derisking IOC’s companywide exposure to its conventional fuel business via addition of new units at the site’s integrated olefins and aromatics complex.

Initially budgeted at an estimated cost of 329.46-billion rupees for startup by September 2024, the Panipat capacity expansion as of June 30 has required an investment of 382.31 billion rupees, the operator said.

IOC also confirmed a long-planned project to expand crude oil processing capacity of its 13.7-million tpy Koyali refinery at Vadodara in India’s western state of Gujarat had reached a completion rate of 89.2% by June 30.

The Gujarat expansion—which will increase the refinery’s crude processing capacity by 4.3 million tpy to 18 million tpy as well as result in proposed production of 500,000 tpy of polypropylene and 235,000 tpy of lube oil base stock at the site—is currently planned for commissioning in November 2026 at an overall cost of about 189.36 billion rupees, up from an original planned investment of 178.25 billion rupees, IOC said.

At the 6-million tpy Barauni refinery in Begusarai District, Bihar, a project to increase crude processing capacity by 3 million tpy to 9 million tpy was 91.6% completed as of June 30, according to the operator.

Previously budgeted at an overall cost of 148 billion rupees, the Barauni expansion—which also was to involve expanding capacity of the refinery’s existing 1.4-million tpy RFCC to 1.7 million tpy—has required an investment of 181.13 billion rupees ahead of its targeted commissioning in December 2026.

At its 15-million tpy Paradip refinery in Odisha, on India’s northeastern coast, IOC said its project to install a grassroots integrated paraxylene-purified terephthalic acid (PX-PTA) complex had reached a completion rate of 94.6% by June 30, with the new complex scheduled to enter service by the end of this month.

The new PX-PTA complex will have a PX production capacity of 800,000 tpy, which will be used as feedstock for the adjacent 1.2-million tpy PTA plant.

As of June 30, the PX-PTA complex project remained on budget at its originally planned investment of 138.05 billion rupees, IOC said.

The operator has separately said it also remains committed to moving forward with proposed construction of a grassroots petrochemicals complex at the Paradip manufacturing site, Phase 1 of which has been approved at an investment of 610.77 billion rupees.

IOC’s petrochemical expansion works come as part of the operator’s plan to improve its Petrochemical Intensity Index (PII) by 2030 to 15% from its current PII level of about 6.11%.