IOC to invest Rs 1,800 cr in upgrading Koyali refinery

Vadodara: Indian Oil will invest about Rs 1,800 crore to upgrade its Koyali refinery to produce fuel compliant with Euro-IV emission norms, a top official said Tuesday.

"The Gujarat refinery is gearing up to meet the petrol and diesel quality improvement programme, in line with the government's auto fuel vision 2025 to supply BS-IV fuels from April, 2017," executive director of the refinery SK Dhar Gupta said.

"We will be investing around Rs 1,800 crore for this," he added.

Petrol and diesel meeting BS-IV specifications are to be supplied throughout the country from April, 2017 and BS-V grade fuel by April 1, 2020, Gupta said.

BS-IV fuels contain 50 parts per million (ppm) sulphur, while BS-V and BS-VI grade fuel have 10 ppm sulphur.

"The refinery with 13.7 MT capacity will revamp all its units to supply BS-IV fuel by April 1, 2017. The BS-IV norms call for reduction of sulphur in diesel from 350 PPM (BSIII) to 50 PPM and in petrol from 150 PPM to 50 PPM," he said.

He added that the refinery was originally designed to process indigenous low sulphur (sweet) crudes from north and south Gujarat but since the demand for oil has gone up, we are changing the plans.