Essar Oil completes expansion of Vadinar refinery

Mumbai, March 29 (IANS) Energy major Essar Oil Thursday said it has completed expansion of its Vadinar oil refinery in Gujarat that would boost turnover by about a third and improve margins.

The expansion, done at a cost of Rs.8,300 crore, makes the Vadinar Refinery India's second largest single-location refinery, with an annual capacity of 18 million tonne (up from 14 million tonne currently).

"With this (expansion), Vadinar is now in league of most complex refineries in the world. It is now capable of turning most difficult and dirty crude oil into high-quality fuel," Essar Oil Managing Director and Chief Executive L.K. Gupta said.

The company said the capacity expansion and complexity enhancement gives the Vadinar Refinery the capability to process much heavier crude, which is cheaper.

The share of ultra heavy crude, which constitutes 20 percent of crude basket of the refinery now, will go up to 60 percent and as a result the overall share of heavy and ultra heavy crude will go up to 80 percent of the refinery's total crude basket.

Gupta said processing heavy and ultra heavy crude would "certainly improve our margins, after the expansion our turnover will increase 30-35 percent".

Close to 80 percent of the refinery's production will now be of valuable light and middle distillates and 50 percent of the production of diesel and petrol will meet Euro IV and Euro V specifications.

"Essar Oil is targeting newer markets like Australia, New Zealand and north-west Europe, in addition to countries in the Indian subcontinent for exporting high quality fuels. However Essar Oil will continue to market a majority of its products in the domestic market," the company said.