Refinery to expand in northeastern India

Numaligarh Refinery Ltd. (NRL), which operates a 3 million tonne/year (tpy) refinery in the Golaghat district of Assam in far-northeastern India, plans to increase crude-distillation capacity to 8-9 million tpy.

At its annual general meeting this month, the company said it is studying a pipeline project for crude supply needed for the expansion.

Projects now under way at the refinery include facilities to produce paraffin and microcrystalline wax and a naphtha splitter to supply 160,000 tpy of petrochemical-grade naphtha to the Assam Gas Cracker Project, which will be operated by Brahmaputra Cracker and Polymer Ltd. at Lepetkata in the Dibrugarh district.

NRL owns a 10% interest in that project, which will be able to produce 220,000 tpy of high density and linear low density polyethylene, 60,000 tpy of polypropylene, 55,000 tpy of raw pyrolysis gasoline, and 12,500 tpy of fuel oil.

NRL’s owners are state-owned Bharat Petroleum Corp. Ltd. (61.65%) and Oil India Ltd. (26%) and the government of Assam (12.35%).

Major processing units at the refinery now are a 306,000 tpy delayed coker, a 1.1 million tpy hydrocracker, and a 225,000 tpy gasoline plant including a catalytic reformer and a naphtha hydrotreater.