IOC greenlights plan to expand Panipat refinery

Indian Oil Corp. Ltd. (IOC) is moving forward with a previously announced plan to expand its 15-million tonnes/year integrated Panipat refining and chemical complex in Haryana, India, north of New Delhi (OGJ Online, July 26, 2019).

At a Feb. 26 meeting, the company’s board approved a project to expand crude oil processing capacity of the Panipat refinery by 10 million tpy to 25 million tpy, IOC said in filings to the National Stock Exchange of India Ltd. and BSE Ltd.

Designed to improve operational flexibility of the refinery to help meet domestic energy demand, the capacity expansion project—which would include installation of a polypropylene unit and catalytic dewaxing unit—would also increase production of petrochemicals and value-added specialty products to elevate margins and derisk IOC’s companywide exposure to its conventional fuel business, according to the operator.

Budgeted at an estimated cost of 329.46-billion rupees, the Panipat capacity expansion is slated for commissioning by September 2024, IOC said.

Original expansion plan

According to a 2018 summary of the project IOC submitted to the Indian government, the newly approved expansion—which follows the operator’s 2010-11 program to boost Panipat’s capacity to 15 million tpy from 12 million tpy via a series of unit revamps and greenfield unit construction—will involve addition of the following new processing units and capacities:

• Atmospheric-vacuum diistillation unit; 10 million tpy.
• Diesel hydrotreating unit; 5 million tpy.
• Vacuum gas oil hydrotreating unit; 3.6 million tpy.
• Residual hydrocracking unit; 3.3 million tpy.
• INDMAX unit; 2.5 million tpy.
• Naphtha hydrotreating unit; 830,000 tpy.
• Isomerization unit; 201,000 tpy.
• Continuous catalytic reforming unit; 624,000 tpy.
• Hydrogen generation unit; 84,000 tpy.
• Propylene recovery unit; 1.150 million tpy.
• Polypropylene unit; 450,000 tpy.
• Alkylation unit; 670,000 tpy.
• Sulfur recovery units; two units, 465 tonnes/day each.
• Sour water stripping unit 1; 344 tonnes/hr.
• Sour water stripping unit 2; 330 tonnes/hr.
• Amine regeneration unit; 1,350 tonnes/hr.
• Catalytic dewaxing unit; 560,000 tpy.

The proposed new units to be added as part of the planned expansion will be built and installed on 387 acres of available land within the Panipat’s refinery’s existing boundaries, IOC said.