Bharat Petroleum gets much-awaited environmental clearance to expand at Kochi refinery

26-Nov-12

Bharat Petroleum has received the much-awaited environmental clearance to expand capacities at its Kochi refinery. With this expansion, the company will be able to feed not only rising domestic demand, but also strengthen export globally. The estimated cost of the expansion project is around Rs 14000 crore which will be used to upgrade the refinery to process cheaper, high-sulphur crude to improve margins and products. Refinery capacity will be enhanced to 15.5 mln tpa by 2015, from the current 9.5 mln tpa, producing Euro-III/IV compliant auto-fuels and various other Petroleum Products. BPCL will also get monetary concession from the state government which includes payment of tax dues from BPCL's products which will be given back to the company as soft loan, as per Moneycontrol. Also, Indian refiners want to ramp up exports as local sales of fuels at subsidised prices are impacting their margins and driving up local fuel demand.