India’s Reliance Industries Ltd will commission its new 580,000 barrels per day (bpd) oil refinery at Jamnagar complex in September after test runs in July, a company source said on Thursday.
Reliance Industries, which operates a 660,000-bpd refinery, is setting up the new plant through its subsidiary Reliance Petroleum, in which Chevron Corp holds a 5 percent stake.
Together the two refineries will form the world’s biggest refining complex that will process 1.24 million bpd of crude.
“Trial runs are planned to begin in July and should be over by end-August, so that the refinery can be commisssioned on some auspicious day in September,” the source, who did not wish to be identified, said.
The company’s spokesman reiterated Reliance’s position that the refinery would be commissioned before December 2008.
The early commissioning gives Reliance a bigger head start to capitalise on robust refining profits before other export-focused refineries – the biggest of which are being built in the Middle East – weaken margins when they launch early next decade.