New Delhi: Indian Oil Corp, the nation's largest oil refiner, plans to process 55 million tons of crude oil into fuel in the 2015-16 fiscal, IOC Director (Refineries) Sanjiv Singh said on Wednesday.
IOC refineries had turned 53.61 million tons of crude oil into petroleum products like diesel and petrol during 2014-15. The capacity utilisation was 98.9 percent in spite of a few shutdowns for improvements, a company statement quoted him as saying
"The refineries achieved best ever combined distillate yield of 78.9 percent during the year," he said.
IOC will add 15 million tons a year state-of-the-art refinery at Paradip in Odisha this year. The firm already has refineries at Guwahati in Assam, Barauni in Bihar, Koyali in Gujarat, Haldia in West Bengal, Mathura in Uttar Pradesh, Panipat in Haryana, Digboi and Bongaigon.
Addressing employees of IOC's refinery division, Singh said the company will this year have opportunities to increase gross refining margin (GRM) and overall profitability.
"Refineries have to be ready. IOC will always have advantage of having cluster of refineries to maintain supplies in all times," he said.
With focused efforts towards energy conservation refineries have achieved best ever overall specific energy consumption at 54.5 units per barrel against previous best of 56 achieved during 2013-14 with implementation of various energy saving schemes and close monitoring of energy parameters.
"Shut downs are part of the process but we need to 'Plan well-execute well' in order to strict to our turn around schedule," Singh added.
