Indian Oil Corp to reduce Panipat refinery runs by 50% for 40 days maintenance turnaround

02-May-14

Indian Oil Corp plans to shut half of its 300,000 bpd Panipat refinery from May 8 for about40 days as it plans major maintenance work at some of the units, as per company sources in Reuters. Panipat refinery in northern India is IOC's biggest plant and has two crude units of 150,000 bpd each. IOC will shut a crude unit from May 8 to May 22 and when this unit resumes operations, the second unit will be shut until mid-June. "We have planned the shutdown in such a way that one of our crude units will remain functional during the maintenance period," said one of the sources. The refiner's 850,000 tpa fluid catalytic cracker, which is already shut down for maintenance since April29, will resume operations from May 17. The refiner did not export naphtha in April because of the planned shutdown, while its only cargo for May-lifting, offered by its subsidiary Chennai Petroleum Corp, is yet to be awarded. IOC is mobilising naphtha from other refineries like Gujarat and Mathura so that runs at the naphtha cracker at Panipat will not be impacted due to the shutdown.