Bharat Petroleum Corp. Ltd. (BPCL), Mumbai, has let feasibility studies to Engineers India Ltd. (EIL) for projects related to the long-planned expansion of its 3 million tonne/year Numaligarh refinery in the Golaghat district of Assam in far-northeastern India (OGJ Online, Sept. 21, 2012).
Under the separate agreements, which were signed during the past year, EIL will provide detailed feasibility reports for both the Numaligarh refinery expansion as well as for a 1,400-km crude oil pipeline connected to the project that would extend from the port of Dhamra on India’s eastern coast to Numaligarh, according to EIL’s recently released annual report for 2013-14.
The proposed pipeline is intended to support the delivery of imported crude supplies to the refinery, according to a May update from Numaligarh Refinery Ltd. (NRL), the BPCL subsidiary in charge of operating the refinery.
NRL plans to increase the refinery’s crude oil distillation capacity by about 6 million tpy to a capacity of 9 million tpy, the company said.
The detailed feasibility study for the refinery’s expansion project was near finalization as of May, NRL said.
NRL’s owners are state-owned BPCL 61.65%, Oil India Ltd. 26%, and the government of Assam 12.35%.
