Reliance has claimed insurance worth about Rs 122 crore for damage to pipelines, civil works, instruments and loss of production to its 27 million tonne Jamnagar refinery and about Rs 22 crore for damage to its Hazira petrochemical complex, industry sources said.

India's only private sector refinery filed insurance claims with its lead insurer New India Assurance Co and its lead re-insurer Munich Re last month, they said. When contacted an RPL spokesperson declined to comment on the issue.

RPL is believed to have suffered a production loss of one lakh tonne of LPG at its Jamnagar refinery where its secondary cracking unit, fluidised catalytic cracking unit (FCCU), which produces mainly LPG and other light distilates, was out of operation for about a month since the quake. The Jamnagar refinery, which constitutes more than one-fourth of the total refining capacity in the country, had a safe shutdown on January 26 and was restarted two days later in phases but there was trouble restarting FCCU.

The FCCU is a secondary unit primarily responsible for maintenance of the plant.

Though RPL restarted the FCC unit in the last week of February, national oil companies had been asked to import additional fuel to meet the domestic demand, the sources said.

RPL refinery was virtually put on full steam within two-three days of the quake and was now operating at about 105 per cent of the rated capacity.

They said the company had refused to take one parcel of crude under `force majure' clause after the quake and since then it was honouring all its commitments on import of crude and distribution of products both within and outside the country.

(PTI)