MRPL is going to operate plant at 50% capacity. Here’s why

Managing Director M Venkatesh said that MRPL will be able to meet all its commitments for fuel supply even while operating at half of its total crude-processing capacity

Mangalore: Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd (MRPL), a subsidiary of Oil & Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), has said on Wednesday that it will operate its 300,000 barrels-per-day refinery at about 50 percent capacity from Thursday because of a shortage of water. In a filing to the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), the oil PSU said, "Considering the acute shortage of fresh water in the river Nethravathi due to the absence of summer showers, MRPL Refinery Complex process units are under partial shut-down as a force majeure."

"We are maximising sewage water to sustain the operation to an extent possible," Managing Director M Venkatesh said on Wednesday.

MRPL will shut a 96,000 bpd crude unit and a hydrocracker

The public sector undertaking said that apart from the 60,000 bpd crude unit and some secondary units that are already shut, it will suspend operations at another 96,000 bpd crude unit and a hydrocracker from Thursday.

MRPL is trying to keep the third 1,42,000 bpd capacity crude unit up and running for at least a month. The unit usually operates at a rate of about 160,000 bpd. Venkatesh said that MRPL will be able to meet all its commitments for fuel supply even while operating at half of its total crude-processing capacity.

The company supplies oil products mostly to meet fuel demand in southern India.