Indian Oil approves plan to power refineries with renewable energy

Indian Oil Corp. Ltd. (IOC) has authorized an investment plan for Indian Oil NTPC Green Energy Pvt. Ltd.—a 50-50 joint venture with NTPC Ltd. subsidiary NTPC Green Energy Ltd. (NGEL)—to set up renewable energy-based power plants designed to meet round-the-clock (RTC) power requirements of IOC’s refineries in India.

At an Oct. 13 board meeting, IOC approved an equity investment of about 16.6 billion rupees ($199.3 million) for Indian Oil NTPC Green Energy to proceed with development of the proposed renewable energy power plants, IOC said in regulatory filings to National Stock Exchange of India Ltd. and BSE Ltd.

The mid-October 2023 investment approval follows official incorporation of the Indian Oil NTPC Green Energy by IOC and NTPC on June 2, 2023, as part of an agreement under which the JV would develop renewable energy-based power projects that would use solar photovoltaic, wind, or any other type of renewable energy or combination thereof to generate enough power to meet RTC requirements of upcoming projects at IOC refineries, IOC said in regulatory filings on June 4, 2023.

IOC and NTPC initially entered an agreement of form Indian Oil NTPC Green Energy and NTPC on July 18, 2022, as part of the state-run companies’ shared objective of increasing India’s use and capacity of renewable energy sources while also helping each partner meet its respective green-energy goals under the national government’s clean energy targets, according to a July 22, 2022, release from IOC.

The Indian Oil NTPC Green Energy JV plans to meet the additional 650-Mw power requirement of IOC refineries using RTC renewable energy by December 2024, the companies said.

IOC did not reveal details regarding the proposed refining projects the JV’s renewable energy plants specifically would power.

Through NGEL, NTPC said it plans to aggressively pursue its green energy business by building a 60-Gw renewable generation portfolio during the next decade.

Currently, IOC holds 10 group refineries equipped to process a combined 80.55 million tonnes/year (tpy) of crude oil, collectively accounting for about 32% of India’s overall crude refining capacity.

In addition to formation of its Cauvery Basin Refinery & Petrochemicals Ltd. JV with subsidiary Cauvery Basin Refinery & Petrochemicals Ltd. for construction of the grassroots 9-million tpy Cauvery Basin refinery (CBR) at Nagapattinam in Tamil Nadu, IOC also is carrying out capacity expansions of its:

• 15-million tpy Panipat refinery to 25 million tpy.
• 13.7-million tpy Gujarat refinery to 18 million tpy.
• 6-million tpy Barauni refinery to 9 million tpy.
• 650,000-tpy Digboi refinery to 1 million tpy.

The ongoing brownfield expansions combined with the planned CBR project will increase IOC’s overall refining capacity by more than 26 million tpy, increasing total capacity of its refining system to about 107 million tpy once completed, the operator said in its latest annual report for 2022-23 published earlier this year.