Govt approves revised cost of Rs 28,026 crore for NRL refinery expansion project
New Delhi: The Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas (MoPNG) has approved a revised project cost of Rs 28,026 crore for Numaligarh Refinery Ltd's (NRL) ongoing expansion project aimed at increasing its refining capacity from 3 MMTPA to 9 MMTPA. "This will be the single-largest investment in North-East India. The originally planned configuration of the upcoming 6 MMTPA has been reconfigured and improved to make it petrochemical-ready, focusing on up-gradation of refinery residue by using the new technology of Ebullated Bed Residue Hydro-Treater along with high severity Petro-FCC unit," NRL said in an official statement on Friday.
Why NRL refinery expansion project cost has been revised?
With the adoption of state-of-the-art technology in this configuration and the addition of extremely complex schemes like residue hydrocracking, the refinery will be able to process heavier crude oil and maximise the production of distillates. This adoption of technology has led to an increase in the project cost from Rs 22,594 crore to Rs 28,026 crore, said NRL.
In the intervening period between the original planning of the refinery configuration for expansion and the present market scenario, NRL has tapped the opportunity of maturity of Residue Upgradation Technology and certainty of availability of Natural Gas to revise this configuration. The configuration and unit design is targeted to achieve best-in-class energy efficiency on global energy benchmarking. With increased distillate yield, NRL will also be able to increase its LPG production, thereby completely eliminating the LPG deficit in the North-Eastern region, said NRL.
Background
The Union Cabinet had approved a Rs 22,594-crore refinery expansion plan for NRL in January 2019. The total expenditure of the project will be financed by a mix of debt, equity and Viability Gap Funding (VGF). In addition to the expansion of the refinery, NRL is also setting up a crude oil pipeline from Paradip to Numaligarh and a product pipeline from Numaligarh to Siliguri at a cost of Rs 22,594 crore.
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