IOC to expand capacity of Mathura refinery

Indian Oil Corp. (IOC) is planning to raise the annual capacity of the Mathura refinery to 11 million tons from eight million tons currently. Located strategically between the historic cities of Delhi and Agra, the Refinery at Mathura is caught in an environmental jam because of concerns about the impact the project might have on the 17th century Taj Mahal. We have approached the Ministry of Environment and Forest for clearance to expand our Mathura refinery,” company Director (Refineries) B. N. Bankapur said. The refinery processes low-sulfur crude from Bombay High, imported low-sulfur crude from Nigeria and high-sulfur crude from the Middle East. IOC is also looking at raising the quantity of high sulfur crude processed at its seven refineries to save money on crude oil imports. Currently our refineries process 50% of high sulfur crude and we want to take this percentage up to 76% by 2012 through upgrading our refineries, he said. High sulfur crude is cheaper by about US$4-5 per barrel compared to low sulfur crude. (September 12/14/15, 2008)