Gujarat Refinery

Gujarat Refinery
Location of Gujarat Refinery
Country	India
Province	Gujarat
City	Koyali
Coordinates	22.3705°N 73.1255°E / 22.3705; 73.1255
Refinery details
Owner(s)	Indian Oil Corporation
Commissioned	1965 (1965)
Capacity	13.7 MMTPA

The Gujarat Refinery is an oil refinery located at Koyali (Near Vadodara) in Gujarat, Western India. It is the largest refinery owned by Indian Oil Corporation.

History

Following the conclusion of an Indo-Soviet agreement in February 1961, a site for the establishment of a 2 million metric ton per annum (mmtpa) oil refinery was selected on 17 April 1961. The Soviet and Indian engineers signed a contract in October 1961 for the preparation of the project. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru laid the foundation stone of the refinery on 10 May 1963.

The refinery was commissioned with Soviet assistance at a cost of Rs.26 crores and went on stream in October 1965. The first crude distillation unit with a capacity of 1 mmtpa was commissioned for trial production on 11 October 1965 and full production at the rated capacity was achieved on 6 December 1965. The throughput was further increased by 20% beyond the designed capacity in January 1966.^{[citation needed]}

President Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan dedicated the refinery to the nation with the commissioning of second crude distillation unit and catalytic reforming unit on 18 October 1966.^{[citation needed]}

The third 1 mmtpa crude distillation unit was commissioned in September 1967 to process Ankleshwar and North Gujarat crudes. In December 1968, Udex plant was commissioned for production of benzene and toluene using feedstock available from CRU. By 1974-75 with in-house modifications, the capacity of the refinery was further increased by 40% to a level of 4.2 mmtpa. To process imported crude the refinery was expanded during 1978-79 by adding another 3 mmtpa crude distillation unit along with downstream processing units like vacuum distillation, visbreaker and bitumen blowing unit. By 1980-81 this unit started processing Bombay High crude in addition to imported crudes. It was for the first time in Indian petroleum industry that Indian engineers independently handled such a big project.^{[citation needed]}

To recover high value products from the residue, the secondary processing facilities consisting of fluidized catalytic cracking unit of 1 mmtpa capacity along with a feed preparation unit of 1 mmtpa capacities, were commissioned in December 1982. Refinery also set up pilot distillation facilities for the production of n-Heptane and light aluminum rolling oils. Meanwhile, to enable absorption of increased indigenous crudes the crude processing capacity of the refinery was further increased to 9.5 mmtpa.^{[citation needed]}

In 1993-1994, Gujarat commissioned the country's first hydrocracker unit of 1.2 mmtpa for conversion of heavier ends of crude oil to high value superior products.^{[citation needed]}

Country's first diesel hydrodesulfurisation unit to reduce sulfur content in diesel was commissioned in June 1999. Also MTBE unit was commissioned in September 1999 to eliminate lead in MS. Conceptualised and commissioned South-East Asia's largest centralised effluent treatment plant by dismantling all the four old ETP's in June 1999. By September 1999 with commissioning of atmospheric distillation unit, Gujarat Refinery further augmented its capacity to 13.7 mmtpa making it the largest Public Sector Undertaking (PSU) refinery of the country.^{[citation needed]}

A project for production of linear alkyl benzene from kerosene streams has been implemented in August 2004. It is also the largest grassroots single train Kerosene-to-LAB unit in the world, with an installed capacity of 1.2 mmtpa. In order to meet future fuel quality requirements, MS Quality improvement facilities was commissioned in 2006.^{[citation needed]}

Description

Its facilities include five atmospheric crude distillation units. The major secondary units include CRU, FCCU and the first hydrocracking unit of the country. Through a product pipeline to Ahmedabad and a product pipeline connecting to BKPL product pipeline and also by rail wagons/trucks, the refinery primarily serves the demand for petroleum products in western and northern India.^{[citation needed]}

When commissioned, the refinery had an initial installed capacity of 2 mmtpa and was designed to process crude from Ankleshwar, Kalol and Nawagam oilfields of ONGC in Gujarat. The refinery had further modified to handle imported and Bombay High crude. The refinery also produces a wide range of specialty products like benzene, toluene, MTO, food grade hexane, solvents, LABFS, etc.^{[citation needed]}

The Gujarat Refinery is the first refinery in India to have completed the diesel hydrodesulfurization project in June 1999, when the refinery started production of HSD with low sulfur content of 0.25% wt (max).^{[citation needed]}

External links

• Indian Oil Corporation Limited
• IndianOil Express
• IndianOil Tenders
• Gujarat Refinery