Saudi Aramco in talks to join Vizag refinery project

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New Delhi: OIL. We have already completed the Phase-I feasibility study and have to go ahead with the next phase, which will cost around Rs 1,000 crore. We are in touch with the joint venture partners on sharing this cost.”

The project comprises a roughly 15-million-tonne-a-year refinery, along with a petrochemical plant. While the refinery would be built to process sour and heavy crudes, which are cheaper than low-sulphur sweat crude, the petrochemical plant may use the naphtha produced in the refinery as feedstock. Details of the project cost and structure, along with the refinery configuration, are being readied, said Balakrishnan, adding that the equity structure was yet to be decided.

“The joint venture company will certainly not be in the public sector domain. The equity will be structured so that the share of public sector companies is below 50%. We are yet to work out these details,” he said.

Total is leading the project feasibility and demand studies, while GAIL is overseeing a study of the petrochemical unit. About 2,500 acre of land near HPCL’s existing 7.5-mtpa refinery at Vizag has been acquired for the project.

Saudi Aramco meets 10% of the world’s oil demand. In 2004, HPCL had evinced interest in participating in Saudi Aramco’s 400,000-barrel-a-day, export-oriented refinery in the Red Sea port of Yanbu, but Riyadh turned down the offer.