October 4, 2023[Financial Express]- Indian Oil Corporation has firmed up plans to pump in over Rs 2,600 crore in setting up several greenfield units and expanding its facilities across the northeast over the next few years, a senior company official said.
The board of IOC has already approved various new projects, while some are in the process of getting the nod, with the leading energy firm in talks with the local governments in Meghalaya, Mizoram and Manipur to finalise land parcels for the greenfield units.
“Northeast is one of the most important regions for Indian Oil and much focus is given here by the top management. We have planned to augment our operations by enhancing refining as well as petroleum, oil and lubricant (POL) storage capacities,” IOC Executive Director (Indian Oil-AOD) Ganesan Ramesh told PTI in an interview. The company is at present carrying out nearly a dozen projects, both greenfield and brownfield, across the region, entailing a total investment of Rs 2,612 crore, he said.”We have a major project coming up in the POL segment — a greenfield depot at Sekerkote in Tripura at an investment of Rs 656 crore,” Ramesh said.Another project, for which the board has given its nod, is the expansion of the Betkuchi POL depot in Guwahati at a cost of Rs 277 crore.
IOC plans to increase the storage intake to 54,000 kilolitres from the existing 25,000 KL, install new fire water tanks and other facilities. It has already acquired an additional 10.67 acres of land to expand the Betkuchi plant.”IndianOil has plans for capacity expansion of its refineries at Guwahati and Digboi with project costs of Rs 412 crore and Rs 768 crore, respectively. Expansion of the Bongaigaon refinery is also envisaged under the North East Hydrocarbon Vision 2030, and currently land acquisition process is under progress,” the official said.He said the company has decided to revamp the Dimapur depot in Nagaland, and the board approval is in the process for an estimated expenditure of Rs 231 crore.”Land is being finalised for setting up of greenfield POL depots at Umran in Meghalaya and Sihhmui in Mizoram to provide fuel security for these states. We are also in talks with the Manipur government for a wagon receipt facility at our Imphal depot,” Ramesh said. In order to ramp up the LPG bottling infrastructure in all the northeastern states, the PSU major has lined up a few projects, he said.”A new 30 TMTPA (thousand metric tonnes per annum) LPG bottling plant is being set up at Umiam, Meghalaya at an approved cost of Rs 75.54 crore. There is another plan for a new 30 TMTPA bottling plant in Mualkhang, Mizoram at an estimated cost of Rs 193 crore,” Ramesh said.IOC has a total bottling capacity of 692 TMTPA across its 10 LPG plants in the northeast. It has 871 distributors with 91 lakh active customers out of the total LPG customer base of 1.12 crore in the region, transforming it into 81.2 per cent of the total connections.In the northeast, IndianOil is the market leader in the POL segment with the highest market share of 64.4 per cent in petrol and 64.5 per cent in diesel, Ramesh said.It has a robust marketing infrastructure with around 1,427 retail outlets and 467 superior kerosene oil (SKO) dealerships, which are supported by 10 bulk storage depots or terminals, he added.
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