India’s Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan holds bilateral meeting with Sri Lanka on energy issues

By Sarkaritel February 7, 2016 19:39

Minister of State (I/C) for Petroleum and Natural Gas Shri Dharmendra Pradhan meeting Dr Anoma Gamage, Deputy Minister of Petroleum Resources Development of Sri Lanka in Bhubaneshwar, Odisha

Bhubaneswar, Feb 07 The Minister of State (I/C) for Petroleum and Natural Gas Dharmendra Pradhan held bilateral meetings with Dr Anoma Gamage, Deputy Minister of Petroleum Resources Development of Sri Lanka in Bhubaneshwar, Odisha.

Pradhan during his meeting with the Sri Lankan Deputy Minister of Petroleum Resources Development discussed the issues such as expansion of activities of Lanka IOC, in Sri Lanka, including in the retail business, bunkering and marketing of ATF and LPG. Lanka IOC is a subsidiary of Indian Oil Corporation.

He reiterated the commitment made by Indian Prime Minister to work with Sri Lanka to make Trincomalee a regional energy hub. He expressed India’s interest in establishing refinery and bunkering operations in Sri Lanka. He expressed confidence that both Sri Lanka and India will work in a spirit of partnership in the hydrocarbon sector.

Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi will be dedicating the state-of-the-art Paradip Refinery, IndianOil’s most ambitious project on 7^th February, 2016. The foundation stone of this ambitious project was laid by former Prime Minister, Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee on 24^th May, 2000. Set up at an estimated cost of Rs. 34,555 crore, this grassroots Refinery will further augment Indian Oil’s refining capacity by 15 MMTPA.

IndianOil’s 11^th Refinery at Paradip, will help in meeting the burgeoning energy demands of the country. For better profitability, the refinery has been designed to process 100% high sulphur, including 40% heavy crude oil of low cost to produce various petroleum products like Petrol, diesel, kerosene, Aviation Turbine fuel, Propylene, Sulphur and Petroleum Coke.

Presently, Paradip Refinery will produce Motor Spirit and High Speed Diesel of BS-IV quality and later will switch to BS-VI quality to comply with the Auto Fuel Policy of the Government of India. The refinery is also designed to produce Euro-V premium quality Motor Spirit and other green auto fuel variants for export to advanced countries. Paradip Refinery has a unique INDMAX Unit technology, which is indigenously been developed by Indian Oil’s R&D Centre. The INDMAX Unit is designed to produce 44% LPG, the highest from such plants.