HPCL plans $3.8 billion refinery investment to lift capacity by two-thirds

MUMBAI: Hindustan Petroleum Corp plans to invest around $3.8 billion to ramp up its refining capacity by two-thirds this decade, as the country's oil demand soars and to meet cleaner fuel standards, a company official told Reuters.

Fuel demand in India - the world's third-biggest oil consumer - is rising at its fastest clip in more than a decade, buoyed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's manufacturing push and as an expanding middle class buys more cars.

State-run Hindustan Petroleum (HPCL) aims to raise its capacity to process about 500,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude by investing around 250 billion rupees ($3.76 billion), refineries head, B. K. Namdeo, said in an interview.

HPCL aims to boost the capacity of its Mumbai refinery to 190,000 bpd by July 2019 from 130,000 bpd, while the Vizag refinery in India's south will ramp up to 300,000 bpd from 166,000 bpd by July 2020, he said.

"We will de-bottleneck the capacity of the two CDUs (crude distillation units) at Mumbai and replace a 46,000 bpd CDU at Vizag with a new 180,000 bpd crude units," Namdeo said.

Alongside the expansion, HPCL will also revamp its gasoline and diesel production units to meet rules on producing cleaner fuels from 2020.

Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd.(HPCL)