RIL to expand refinery anew

Mukesh Ambani promoted Reliance Industries (RIL) plans to increase the capacity of its new refinery by 21-24% over the next 6-8 months.

RIL acquired the refinery soon after its completion through a merger of subsidiary Reliance Petroleum (RPL) with itself. The move made it the owner of the largest single-location refining capacity in the world, at around 1.2 million barrels of crude per day.

The new refinery has a design capacity of 580,000 barrels per day, or 29 million tonnes per annum (mtpa), and is capable of juggling production between different crude distillates as petrol and diesel.

The unit has been running around 12% above capacity since it started functioning in December, Reuters reported Maurice Bannayan, senior vice-president, RIL as saying in the UAE on Wednesday. "Currently it is running at 650,000 barrels per day, we are planning to do some consolidation that will be up to 700,000 or 720,000 (barrels per day) in 6-8 months," Bannayan told the news agency.

The new refinery, in fact, is processing more crude than RIL's older refinery, which has a capacity of 660,000 barrels per day (33 mtpa), but has lower secondary-processing ability.

Secondary processing capacity, measured by the Nelson Index, allows refineries to produce more of a certain type of product, such as Petrol, by breaking down less profitable products such as industrial fuels.

With a score of 14 on the Nelson Complexity index, the new unit can process heavy-crude varieties and produce superior quality products, well beyond Euro-IV specifications.

Source:http://www.dnaindia.com/money/report_ril-to-expand-refinery-anew_1299101

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