Chennai Petroleum to invest US$2.75 billion to expand Manali refinery

Chennai Petroleum Corp. announced that it plans to expand the company’s Manali refinery at a cost of Rs 123.40 billion (US$2.75 billion). The expansion will increase the Manali’s refining capacity to 17 million tons a year by 2016. The new refinery will also increase in complexity. Currently, the plant has a refining capacity of 10.5 million tons. The first step will be to make a short-term capacity increase to 11.1 million tons by September 2011. Finance Director for Chennai Petroleum, N. C. Sridharan said, “The short term capacity increase will be done through debottlenecking and increasing the efficiency of old operating units.” This short term increase will cost the company approximately Rs3.4 billion (US$75.1 million). (March 7, 2011)