Petro push: RIL to put state on world refinery map

Reliance Industries Limited president refinery P Raghvendra has said that the refinery is set to begin operations shortly, setting a record of building a new refinery in less than 36 months. The combined output from the new 6-billion dollar refinery and the existing refinery at Moti Khavdi 8212; which has a capacity of 66 million barrels per day 8212; will touch a figure of 1.2 million barrels per day, which is like meeting 50 per cent of the global oil demand increment by the coming year. The refinery is expected to supply 10 million tonnes of petrol and 20 million tonnes of diesel every year.

This will also make Jamnagar the refinery capital of the world. Despite negligible crude production, India will emerge as a prominent player in refining petroleum products.

Along with the quantity, the quality of the products will also give the RPL refinery an edge over the refineries in the Middle East. It will be one of the most complex refineries in the world with a Nelson Complexity Index NCI of 14.0. NCI is a measure of the secondary conversion capacity of a petroleum refinery relative to the primary distillation capacity, which assures quality of the by-products like petroleum and diesel of Euro IV and Euro V standard. Even the existing refinery has an NCI of 11.