NEW DELHI: State-owned oil firms IOC BPCL and HPCL today signed an agreement to jointly set up the world's largest refinery and petrochemical complex at Ratnagiri district of Maharashtra at a cost of USD 40 billion.Indian Oil Corp (IOC) will be the lead partner with 50 per cent stake while Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd (HPCL) and Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd (BPCL) will take 25 per cent stake each, IOC Chairman Sanjiv Singh said.The three oil refining and marketing companies signed the joint venture agreement here this evening.Speaking on the occasion, Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said though India is the world's third largest energy consumer after US and China, its per capita energy consumption is one-fourth of the world average. "Domestic oil demand is likely to climb to 500 million tonnes by 2040. Against this, our domestic refining capacity currently is 230-235 million tonnes. IOC recently started its 15 million tonnes unit at Paradip in Odisha.Reliance Industries holds the distinction of building the biggest refinery in India till now.It built its first refinery at Jamnagar in Gujarat with a capacity of 27 million tonnes, which was subsequently expanded to 33 million tonnes. HPCL has three refineries with a total capacity of 24.8 million tonnes.
Source: Economic Times June 14, 2017 15:37 UTC