Indian Oil Raises Refineries’ Production Run Rate To 60%

Indian Oil has raised refineries' production run charges to 60% from 45% final month and restarted a few of its shuttered petrochemical items as demand picks up following the easing of lockdown, the corporate mentioned, including that the run might additionally increase to 80% by month-end.

Easing of nationwide lockdown that permitted individuals to step out of their houses and have interaction in financial exercise in most elements of the nation seems to have revived gas demand that had witnessed a reported fall in April.

"Even though the nationwide lockdown had severely impacted the entire value chain of petroleum products, Indian Oil has kept all its refinery units on 'hot' standby to be ready for scale-up to higher throughputs once the product demand picks up," Indian Oil mentioned. With demand for refined merchandise almost halving in April and its storage working out of the area, Indian oil had minimized refinery operation to 45% of design capacities by the primary week of April.

The firm has resumed the production of petrochemical intermediates like high-density polyethylene and polypropylene at its Panipat complicated. The naphtha cracker and the mono-ethylene-glycol plant at Panipat are additionally again in operation.

The Polypropylene plant at Paradip too will resume operations in a few days and different polymer items are additionally being readied to go browsing this month itself, the corporate mentioned. The revival of the Panipat Naphtha cracker may even facilitate additional improvement in refinery crude oil throughputs, it mentioned.

"With the gradual lifting in lockdown restrictions, several downstream industries in the plastics packaging, medical supplies, and food packaging sectors have resumed operations from late April '20. As a consequence, dispatches of polymer grades such as BOPP, GPBM, PP raffia, and PP yarn used in these industries have begun from Panipat," the corporate mentioned.