Essar Oil imports first crude
In a major milestone towards commissioning of its $2.2 billion refinery at Vadinar in Gujarat, Essar Oil Ltd has imported the first consignment of crude oil towards starting the refinery by end-October or early November.
By PTI |
NEW DELHI: In a major milestone towards commissioning of its $2.2 billion refinery at Vadinar in Gujarat, Essar Oil Ltd has imported the first consignment of crude oil towards starting the refinery by end-October or early November.
Essar imported one million barrels of Saharan blend sweet crude from Algeria at Vadinar port on Thursday, industry sources said. It has contracted another parcel of one million barrels Dubai Light crude from Vitol for September 26-27 delivery.
Trial runs would begin soon and commercial production expected in November.
When contacted, an Essar official confirmed receipt of first crude oil consignment on Thursday. "We have begun unloading the crude oil today."
The refinery would initially production 7 million tonnes of only petrol and diesel, mainly for export, as domestic marketing margins are considered unattractive. The 10.5 million tonnes a year refinery would reach its full capacity in March-April 2007.
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Essar, which restarted work on the refinery in March last year, had originally scheduled to begin commercial operations in April 2007 but the company had speeded up work for completion of the project before the scheduled date.Sources said Essar Oil's refinery is configured in a manner that allows it the flexibility to process diverse varieties and qualities of crude. This gives the company a significant advantage of flexibility in refining and purchase in international markets.
Like any other chemical plant, Essar Oil's 10.5 million tonnes per annum refinery is also expected to be commissioned in phases with primary units and a few secondary units going on stream in the second half of October and fluid catalytic cracker and a diesel hydro desulfurizer is expected to be commissioned in a couple of months thereafter.
Initially, the crude distillation unit, the vacuum distillation unit, sulphur gas unit, naphtha hydrotreater, catalytic cracker and visbreaker would be commissioned, sources said.
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The Fluid Catalytic Cracer Unit (FCCU) and Diesel Hydro De-sulphurisation plant have been confirgured to meet Euro-III and Euro-IV standards.Sources said the refinery capacity can be raised to 14 million tonnes a year through minor de-bottlenecking.
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Essar's refinery is a fully integrated complex with a dedicated 120-MW power plant, port and terminal facilities including a single buoy mooring capable of handling vessels upto 350,00 DWT with a capacity of 25 million tonnes a year.The refinery tankages with interconnecting pipelines have a capacity of 20 million tonnes per annum capacity while marine product dispatch facility can handle 12 million tonnes per annum.
The company has also set up a dedicated railway sliding and truck loading facility to feed the domestic market.
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