New Delhi: State-owned Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd's planned USD 4 billion refinery at Ratnagiri in Maharashtra would depend on lifting of environmental moratorium on projects in that region, Parliament was informed on Thursday.
HPCL plans to set up a 9 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) greenfield refinery in Ratnagiri district of Maharashtra, Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas R P N Singh said in a written reply in the Lok Sabha.
Details feasibility study for the project was being carried out and land acquisition activities have been initiated. Also, HPCL has submitted application for environmental clearance.
"However, the Ratnagiri district is under environmental moratorium till December, 2012. The feasibility of the project will therefore depend on lifting of environmental moratorium," he said.
HPCL had originally conceived a 15 MTPA unit near Chiplun (Ratnagiri district) by 2016-17 but later scaled down the size to 9 MT capacity that could be doubled to 18 MT by 2020.
This would be the company's third refinery as at present it has units at Mumbai and Visakhapatnam with combined capacity of 14 MT. Vizag's capacity will be increased by another 9 MT to 15.5 MT.
It has built a 9 MT unit at Bhatinda in Punjab through a joint venture with steel czar L N Mittal.
Since Mumbai's land is locked for expansion, its capacity will remain at 7.5 MT, though some debottlenecking could result in a marginal increase.
"The incentive package requirement from the Government of Maharasthra (for the Ratnagiri refinery) is yet to be finalised and financing of the proposed project will be worked out subsequently," Singh added.
PTI
