BPCL weighs grassroots integrated refining, petrochemical complex at Andhra Pradesh
Bharat Petroleum Corp. Ltd. (BPCL) has taken its first official step for potentially setting up a grassroots integrated refining and petrochemical complex that, if approved, would be built in Andhra Pradesh, on India’s southeastern coast.
On Dec. 24, BPCL’s board granted its approval of a 61-billion rupee ($716.3-million) investment dedicated to starting preliminary development activities for the proposed greenfield project, BPCL said in regulatory filings to BSE Ltd. and the National Stock Exchange of India Ltd.
Preliminary project activities to be undertaken as part of the investment will cover various unidentified initial studies, identification and acquisition of land, as well as preparation of the project’s detailed feasibility report, environment impact assessment, basic design engineering package, and front-end engineering and design study, BPCL said.
While the operator has yet to publicly reveal further details regarding its plans on the potential greenfield integrated complex, this preliminary project investment comes as part of a larger phased investment of 950-billion rupee ($11.2-billion) budget BPCL aims to invest in the proposed project, according to a Dec. 27 post by Vemireddy Prabhakar Reddy—a member of parliament for Nellore, Andhra Pradesh—to his official social media accounts.
When asked in its Oct. 28 conference call on second-quarter earnings for the company’s 2024-25 fiscal year (FY) about earlier local media reports out of India regarding a location for the then-rumored project, BPCL said that—while it was continuously exploring opportunities where opportunities were available to help bolster its refining and petrochemical businesses—it was looking at all options and would explain details once a proposal had been concluded.
Expanding refining capacity
Earlier in the year, BPCL confirmed it was seeking to expand its existing nameplate refining capacity of 35.3 million tonnes/year (tpy) to a potential 45 million tpy as part of the operator’s strategic framework for FY 2024-29.
The operator is currently undertaking a 3.2-million tpy expansion of its 7.8-million tpy refinery in Bina, Madya Pradesh, India, as part of its Bina petrochemicals and refinery expansion plan (BPREP) project that—approved in 2023 an investment of 490 billion rupees (nearly $6 billion)—will expand processing capacity of the refinery to 11 million tpy to primarily cater to feed requirements for the new petrochemical units’ production of polymer-grade ethylene and propylene to supply downstream polymer production units (OGJ Online, Aug. 14, 2024).
In addition to boosting crude capacity, BPREP involves installation of a dual-feed cracker that—scheduled for completion in 2028—will produce 1.2 million tpy of ethylene for new downstream units equipped to produce 1.15 million tpy combined of linear low-density polyethylene (LLDPE) and high-density polyethylene (HDPE), 550,000 tpy of polypropylene, as well as aromatics such as benzene, toluene, and mixed xylenes.
In its second-quarter FY 2024-25 investor presentation, BPCL said potential also exists for expanding crude capacity of its 12-million tpy refinery in Mumbai, Maharastra, by 4 million tpy to 16 million tpy, as well as for a 2.5-million tpy expansion of its 15.5-million tpy Kochi refinery at Ambalamugal, Ernakulam, Kerala, India, to 18 million tpy.
Robert Brelsford | Downstream Editor
Robert Brelsford joined Oil & Gas Journal in October 2013 as downstream technology editor after 8 years as a crude oil price and news reporter on spot crude transactions at the US Gulf Coast, West Coast, Canadian, and Latin American markets. He holds a BA (2000) in English from Rice University and an MS (2003) in education and social policy from Northwestern University.
