NRL to commission wax project; DRP for capacity expansion underway

NRL chairman S Varadarajan

STATE-owned oil marketing PSU Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd's Assam-based refinery NRL will soon commission its wax project. With the commissioning of the project, NRL would emerge as a leading wax producer in the country, the PSU stated in a statement after the...

Annual General Meeting (AGM) of NRL held last week in Guwahati, Assam. The company is also in the process of establishing its marketing network for Wax through appointment of nine distributors across the country.

The wax Project envisages production of high value Paraffin and Micro-Crystalline Wax utilizing inherent properties of North East Crude. The project is being implemented at an approved cost of Rs. 676 crores.

NRL is preparing a detailed feasibility report (DFR) for expanding its refining capacity from three to nine MMTPA million metric tonnes per annum (MMTPA) at an estimated cost of Rs.16600 crore, sourcing incremental crude through imports. This was disclosed during the AGM.

The imported crude is envisaged to be transported from an eastern port to Numaligarh through a new pipeline.

The AGM was presided over by S. Varadarajan, chairman and managing director, BPCL and chairman, NRL and was attended by P. Padmanabhan, managing director, NRL.

The move was necessitated as the Assam-based refinery is facing the dual challenge of sub-economic refining capacity and declining trend in domestic crude oil supplies from northeastern oil fields.

NRL, which commenced commercial production in October 2000, had already taken up a slew of measures to enter the markets of neighbouring countries during the last year. An agreement was already inked with an oil company in Nepal for maiden export of Motor Spirit (MS) and High Speed Diesel (HSD) to that country.

The PSU is also pursuing the project to lay a 135 km product pipeline from its terminal at Siliguri to Parbatipur in Bangladesh to facilitate sustained export of MS and HSD.

NRL has completed 14 years of successful operation with sustained profitability.

During the financial year 2013-14, NRL achieved a sales turnover of Rs.9,872 crore, recording a growth of 13 percent and indicating that the company had increased its net profit by 157 percent to Rs.371 crore.

The AGM declared a dividend of 16 percent (i.e. Rs. 1.60 per fully paid share of Rs. 10/- each) for the year 2013-14 on the paid up share capital.

The PSU’s net worth stood at Rs. 2,991 crore as on March 31, 2014.

NRL posted 92.16 percent distillate yield during 2013-14, the highest among PSU refineries in the country, the statement added.

Varadarajan said,”Our excellence in refinery operations has been exemplified through achievement of highest distillate yield among all PSU oil refineries in the country for the third consecutive year'.

Recently, NRL attained the coveted ISO : 50001 : 2011 certification for Energy Management Systems for the scope 'Production of Petroleum products by refining crude oil including product dispatch terminal operation' from internationally acclaimed certifying agency, DNV, Netherlands. With this, NRL becomes the second public sector refinery in the country to receive this distinction.

The present authorized capital of the company is Rs 1,000 crore and paid up capital is Rs 735.63 crore. BPCL owns the maximum 61.65 percent in the PSU and OIL 26 percent.