BackCyclone Hudhud forces HPCL, Coromandel to shut plants in Visakhapatnam
The companies said the plants have been closed as a precautionary measures and services will resume as soon as power is restored
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Hyderabad: The cyclone Hudhud, which made landfall near Visakhapatnam on Sunday, has forced Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd (HPCL) shut its 166,000 barrels-per-day (bpd) refinery in the port city as a “precautionary measure" against the storm, its head of refineries said.
“Some minor disturbance is there which needs to be corrected. Normally, it will take another three to four days to come back on line to full capacity," B.K. Namdeo, HPCL’s director (refineries), told Reuters on Monday.
Namdeo said the refinery, which employs close to 1,200, did not face any major damage except for some impact on the drainage systems and some uprooted trees.
The company is seeking approvals to expand the refinery’s capacity to 300,000 bpd. It is also increasing capacity at its Mumbai refinery in western India to 200,000 bpd from 130,000 bpd.
Fertilizer company Coromandel International too followed suit and said its operations at their Visakhapatnam plant has been temporarily stopped due to Hudhud cyclone in the region. However, the cyclone has not caused any major damage to the manufacturing facilities, it said. “The power supply has been disrupted and is expected to be resumed in a day or two. Efforts are on to resume production as soon as normalcy is restored," Coromandel International said in a BSE filing.
Visakhapatnam, was hammered as the cyclone made landfall on Sunday, with gusts of up to 195km/hour (over 120 mph), damaging buildings and killing at least five people despite a major evacuation effort. The cyclone has now weakened and moving north westwards.
An alert for heavy to very heavy rainfall has been sounded in districts of Visakhapatnam, Srikakulam and Vizianagaram and in some parts of Odisha where the cyclone, which has claimed eight lives so far, had moved before heading to Chhattisgarh.
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