BackHPCL to decide on setting up oil refinery in AP: Deora
HPCL to decide on setting up oil refinery in AP: Deora
PremiumNew Delhi: Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd and its partners including Total S A of France will decide on setting up a 14-15 million tonnes oil refinery cum petrochemical project at Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh, in April or May 2009.
“Due to meltdown of the global economy and unprecedented reduction in demand for petroleum products, the viability to proceed with the feasibility study of this project will be once again reviewed in the month of April or May 2009," Petroleum Minister Murli Deora told Rajya Sabha today.
Besides HPCL and Total, other partners in the project that may cost $10 billion are gas utility GAIL India Ltd, Oil India Ltd and Mittal Energy Investments Pte Ltd. Mittal has already put on hold investing in the project due to the global financial woes.
“The pre-feasibility study for the proposed project has been completed," he said, adding partners are yet to agree on doing a full feasibility study of the project in view of the current economic situation.
“During April / May 2009, HPCL along with the consortium partners will once again examine the supply-demand balance and carry out techno-economic evaluation of this project. Only when it is established that the project is techno-economically viable, the consortium partners will agree to proceed with the next phase of FEED study of the project," he said.
The partners will award Front End Engineering and Design (FEED) contract only after establishing that there is a market for the products.
HPCL, GAIL, Total, OIL and Mittal Energy had entered into an MoU in October 2007 to explore possibility of setting up the refinery-cum-petrochemical project at Visakhapatnam.
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