Hindustan Petroleum freezes new refinery plans

Hindustan Petroleum Ltd. has put its planned refinery project in the country’s south on hold, its chairman and managing director said. “The refinery project in Visakhapatnam is expected to cost between 300 billion to 350 billion rupees (US$6.2 billion to US$7.3 billion) now. So we have decided to revisit the project after six months,” Arun Balakrishnan said. Balakrishnan added that the company’s refining margins have improved this month and are at $5 to $7 per barrel. (January 13, 2009)