RPL says Jamnagar refinery under budget

Reliance Petroleum Ltd. (RPL), which began commissioning its 580,000 barrels per day (bpd) greenfield refinery in Jamnagar, India, on December 25, 2008, said the project was completed under budget at Rs262.17 billion (US$5.36 billion) against a projected investment of Rs270 billion (US$5.52 billion). Part of the funding came from Rs81 billion (US$1.65 billion) that RPL, a subsidiary of private oil and petrochemicals giant Reliance Industries Ltd., raised in an initial public offering (IPO) in April 2006. The “synchronizing and commissioning” of the secondary units at the new Jamnagar refinery is also under way, RPL said in a statement. The new export-oriented refinery is in the “special economic zone” of Jamnagar in the western state of Gujarat and increases the Reliance Group’s total capacity to 1.24 million bpd, surpassing the country’s biggest refiner, state-owned Indian Oil Corp. (January 20, 2009)