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(Thanks to a reader for the pointer.)

Following is from a report in Telegraph.

The Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) for setting up the Rs 2.7 lakh crore petroleum, chemicals and petrochemicals investment region (PCPIR) near Paradip was signed between the state and the Centre today.

The PCPIR will come up over 284.15sqkm in Jagatsinghpur and Kendrapara districts with a proposed investment of Rs 2,77,734 crore.

While Orissa Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation (Idco) chairman-cum managing director Priyabrata Patnaik represented the state, additional secretary of the department of chemical and petrochemicals Geeta Menon signed on behalf of the Union government. Patnaik said, “The MoA was signed and the project has got legal sanction. All the work for the project will now proceed according to the plan.”

… Sources said the state government has requested the Centre to take up the project work in the 12th five year plan. Under the plan, an airport will come up at Paradip and two direct roads from Bhubaneswar to Puri Paradeep will be built. One of these will begin from Uttara Square on the outskirts of Bhubaneswar.

Idco will act as a nodal department to help the government develop the PCPIR. “A meeting chaired by CM Naveen Patnaik is likely to be held this week to finalise the detailed project report.”

An apex body under the chairmanship of the chief minister has already been constituted to look into the implementation of the project. Under the proposed plan, a regional development authority (RDA) will be set up. The RDA will have autonomous power and other authorities will not be able to intervene in the work of the RDA.

… Officials hope that land acquisition for the project would not be a problem. “Instead of taking lands directly from people, we will go for swapping of land. If the government takes one acre of land, the same area of land will be allotted to the owner in another place,” said an official associated with the project.

Sources said the government had asked the Centre to build a coastal corridor that would connect Paradip to Chennai. “Andhra Pradesh has also supported Orissa. The Centre has taken the demand seriously,” said the official.

The Indian Oil Corporation (IOCL) will be the anchor tenant for the project. The PCPIR will also include the IOCL’s refinery at Paradip, which in the first phase, will have an investment of Rs 29,777 crore. The refinery will have a crude and vacuum distillation unit, a hydro-cracking unit and a delayed coker unit. It will also have an integrated gasification combined cycle plant for production of steam, power and hydrogen from petroleum coke for captive use in the refinery.

Another leading player, Deepak Fertilizers, will set up a greenfield ammonium nitrate plant in the PCPIR. Tata Steel and the South Africa-based Sasol have expressed interest in setting up a coal to liquid project under the PCPIR. The project is likely to come up by 2018 in an area of 3,000 acres. The plant will produce 80,000 barrels of liquid fuel from coal per day.

According to the plan, Rs 13,634 crore will be invested for infrastructure development in the PCPIR. Of this, the Centre will provide Rs 716 crore under Viability Gap Funding (VGF) to ensure infrastructure linkages such as rail, road (national highways), ports, airports and telecom through public-private partnership. The state’s share will be Rs 1,796 crore while the remaining Rs 11,122 crore will be generated through private participation.

Following is an excerpt from a report in Economic Times.

State-owned Indian Oil Corp (IOC) today said its Rs 29,777-crore Paradip refinery in Orissa will be commissioned by March 2012 and will cater to domestic market rather than exports as previous thought, due to rise in fuel demand at home.

…The refinery will produce 5.97 million tons of diesel, 3.4 million tons of petrol, 1.45 million tons of kerosene/ATF, 536,000 tons of LPG, 124,000 tons of naphtha and 335,000 tons of sulphur, all of which will be for sale in domestic market.

Some of 200,000 tons of propylene to be produced by the unit may be exported, he said.

Bankapur said the refinery will start producing fuel by March 2012 when it will commission the primary units like Crude Distillation Unit. Secondary units will be commissioned by July, 2012, and operations stabilised by November, 2012.

Besides the Rs 29,777 crore cost of refinery, the Paradip project also includes a Rs 1,793 crore pipeline to Raipur and Ranchi. The 1,100 km pipeline will carry fuel produced in the unit to consumers in Orissa, Jharkhand, Chattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh. Besides, a marketing terminal at the cost of Rs 414 crore is also being built.

IOC may take companies like Saudi Aramco and Kuwait Petroleum as equity partner in the Paradip refinery if they agree to supply most of the crude oil requirement of the 15 million tons unit.

The company wants someone who can commit long-term crude supply as equity partner but so far nothing has materalised.

IOC had last year signed a loan agreement with a consortium of lenders led by State Bank of India for term loan of Rs 14,900 crore for the project.

Bankapur said the company had some time back split the refinery-cum-petrochemical complex into two, deciding to complete the refinery first and follow with the chemical unit.

The feasibility of setting up the petrochem complex will be studied in next 3-4 months, he said.

The Paradip refinery is being configured to process the toughest, heaviest and the dirtiest crudes which are cheaper than the cleaner and easier varieties.

The refinery will have a Nelson Complexity Index of 13, the highest in the world.

Following is from a report in Hindu.

Indian Oil Corporation has tied up finances for its Rs 29,777 crore Paradip refinery project in Orissa that would be commissioned by March 2012.

"We have received commitments from a consortia of banks," IOC Chairman Sarthak Behuria said.

SBI Caps, which was mandated to arrange Rs 14,700 crore debt for the project, has managed Rs 14,900 crore from 21 banks. State Bank of India (SBI) will be the largest lender with Rs 4,200 crore exposure.

IOC was likely to sign loan agreements with the consortia of banks on May 14.

"We will draw (from these loans) as and when we need them," he said but did not give details.

IOC is targeting commissioning of the refinery in first quarter of 2012. The board had recently split the refinery cum petrochemical complex into two, deciding to do the refinery first and the chemical unit will follow later.

Paradip refinery is being configured to process the toughest, heaviest and the most dirtiest crudes which are cheaper than the cleaner and easier varieties. The refinery will have a Nelson Complexity Index of 15.

Following is from a report in Oil and Gas journal.

Indian Oil Corp. Ltd. has awarded a contract to Foster Wheeler Energy Ltd. and Foster Wheeler (GB) Ltd. for a grassroots refinery to be built in Paradip, Orissa state, India.

Foster Wheeler will manage the project for the major part of the development of the new 15 million tonne/year refinery and will also execute the engineering, procurement, and construction management for 15 of the key refinery process units, plus offsites, utilities, and infrastructure.

Foster Wheeler’s scope includes the crude distillation units, reforming, alkylation and butane isomerization units, plus significant offsites, utilities, and infrastructure. Commissioning of the project is expected during 2011-12.

Following is an excerpt from a report in sify.com.

Thinning refining margin and a global crisis notwithstanding, Indian Oil will stick to its plans to set up the proposed 15-million-tonnes Paradip refinery. The company is optimistic about completing the project at a cost lower than the estimated Rs 30,000 crore.

… “The sharp meltdown in commodity prices as well as the depression should bring down the project cost net of a devalued rupee. Thankfully enough, we are rightly poised to grab the opportunity,” a source said.

…IOC is currently in the process of awarding the PMC (project management contractor) contract. “We have started receiving quotes lower than our expectation. The trend may only get stronger six to nine months later when the actual project tendering will begin,” a source said.

“This project was planned on a long-term perspective and I see no reason to rework on it,” the IOC Chairman, Sarthak Behuria, told Business Line. He, however, did not clarify whether the project would achieve financial closure by next month as was scheduled previously.

IOC has finalised the loan and equity components for the project. Initial agreement was reached with the identified lending agencies on cost of borrowings. The loan agreements are slated to be firmed up in November.

Following is from a report in steelguru.

TATA Power Company & Indian Oil Corporation have decided to float a new company for jointly developing a 1,000 MW coal based power project at Paradip in Orissa. The shareholding pattern of the JV would be 74-26 for TPC and IOC, respectively.

As per report, the proposed project is essentially being set up as a captive project to meet the power requirements of IOC’s 15 million tonnes per annum integrated refinery cum petrochemicals complex at Paradip. The plant may also supply power to the proposed steel plant of the TATA group in Orissa as also other industries in and around the Paradip complex.

Under the JV agreement, Indian Oil is committed to source at least 51% power and the surplus generation can be traded by the JV company. The authorized share capital of JVC will be INR.1,200 crore and the capital will be increased to meet the requirement of further investment as and when called for.

Based on a feasibility study carried out by TPC & IOC the tariff for power supply to the Paradip complex has been estimated on annual levelised basis for 25 years operation at INR 2.46 per unit. The levelised power tariff on similar basis for captive generation within Paradip complex has also been assessed jointly with Foster Wheeler which indicates a significantly higher value of over INR 5 per unit.

Following is an excerpt from a report in Times of India.

Venezuela’s national oil company PdVSA is in talks with IndianOil Corporation for taking up to 49% stake in a 15 million tonne refinery the flagship Indian refiner-marketer is building in Orissa’s Paradip at an investment of a little under Rs 30,000 crore.

“We have received interest from PdVSA. We are evaluating the offer,” a senior company executive, requsting anonymity, said on the sidelines of the 19th World Petroleum Congress here. “We want a partner not for money but for some value. In this case, PdVSA has said it can supply Venezuelan crude to the refinery. IndianOil would look at getting at least half, or 7.5 million tonnes, of Paradip refinery’s crude requirement from Venezuela.”
…

there are other factors that could work for the PdVSA deal. Venezuelan crude is one of the toughest to process and needs refineries with high complexity ratings. IndianOil has designed the Paradip unit to accept the toughest, heaviest and the dirtiest crudes. “Our refinery will have a Nelson Complexity Index of 15,” the IndianOil executive said. Reliance Petroleum’s upcoming export refinery at Jamnagar, which is billed the most advanced, is rated at 14. Besides, India offers strategic locational advantage from where exports can even happen to as far as the US.

Following is an excerpt from a report in Telegraph.

The Centre had accorded provisional approval to five, proposed petroleum, chemical and petrochemical investment regions including the one being planned in Orissa and had asked if the state government would be investing in the project infrastructure.

The authority consented to invest Rs 2,700 crore on the infrastructure development, while the Centre and central public sector undertakings, including the Indian Oil Corporation, have already agreed to spend Rs 5,800 crore on this score.

In all, Rs 15,273 crore would be spent on the infrastructure development at the project site and on the periphery, official sources said.

According to the vision plan, the proposed region would be developed in an area spread over 250sqkm without any displacement. The areas concerned would be developed into modern “city villages”. The annual project turnover has been estimated at Rs 423,500 crore.

There would be a value addition of the petroleum-related products to the tune of Rs 43,000 crore and an equal amount in shape of export earnings. The total tax income has been estimated at Rs 42,000 crore, of which Rs 32,100 crore is expected to go to the state exchequer.

Following is an excerpt from a report in Pioneer.

Indian Oil Corporation (IOL)’s Chairman S. Beuria called on Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Saturday at Orissa Bhawan in New Delhi and appraised him about the progress on 15 MMTPA Paradip- refinery -cum- aromatic complex.

He indicated that approximately Rs 1,254 crore had already been spent on the project.

“Due to cost and time overruns, the project cost is likely to go up to Rs 46,000 crore and the project will take 42 months to get completed,” he said.

He further indicated that they have already received environmental clearance from the Union Ministry of Environment and Forest. Construction of water and power supply system has also been completed. The work of dredging and reclamation of land is under progress.

Beuria informed Patnaik that the seven year- holiday available under Section 51-B will be withdrawn effective from April 1, 2009 It would affect the viability of the project.

… Patnaik asked the Beuria to take up the peripheral development works for the benefit of the project affected people of Jagatsinghpur district.

Following is an excerpt from a report in Financial Express.

The Paradip Petrochemicals & Petroleum Investment Region (PCPIR), which has raced ahead to become one of the five fast track projects, is expected to attract a total investment to the tune of Rs 2.75 lakh crore.

The IL&FS, the consultant for the Orissa project, Monday gave a presentation to the senior officials of the state government about the development of the project. The presentation was witnessed by chief secretary, Ajit Kumar Tripathy, development commissioner RN Bohidar, industries secretary Ashok Dalwai, commerce & transport principal secretary Priyabrata Patnaik, special secretary Guru Ray, IDCO managing director Vishal Dev, among other senior officials.

The IL&FS vice-president, Anil Goel, said that the Orissa project, which was lagging behind, has made good progress during the last two months. According to him, the project is now at par with the projects proposed at Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh, Dahej in Gujarat and Mangalore in Karnataka. He said that the project has been highly appreciated by the Centre.

Goel, who was accompanied by his Orissa head Manoj Panda, said that the project, which will come up over an area of 28,500 hectare at Paradip, will have Indian Oil Corp’s (IOC) Rs 26,000 crore petrochemical complex as anchor tenant. Besides the IOC investments, the project will attract investment to the tune of Rs 23,000 crore in township, housing and allied sectors, Rs 15,275 crore in external infrastructures like port, airport, cargo complex, road, while Rs 2.30 lakh crore will come in the hardcore industries of the petrochemical sectors. He said the investments would be by the private corporate houses, public sector undertakings, and in the mode of BOOST and PPP.

Following is Samaja’s take on it.

Odisha.in reports that IOC will set up a Biodiesel refinery in Orissa. Following is an excerpt from an Odisha.in  news item on this.

The Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) Thursday announced to set up a Bio-Diesel Oil Refinery in Orissa.

This was announced by B.B.Choudhury, chief of IOC, Eastern Zone at the Banker’s Committee meeting on rising of energy plantation and Bio-Diesel production being organised jointly by OREDA and Science and Technology Department, Orissa.

Choudhury said that IOC had plans to support all necessary infrastructures for sustainable and qualitative production of Bio-Diesel.

He said that IOC would set up the proposed Bio-fuel processing unit in a centrally located area and urged the state government to help supply high yielding non-edible Jatropha or Karanja seeds of at least 2 lakh Metric tones annually to make the unit viable.

IOC has decided to blend Petrol and Diesel with ethanol content in rational level ,he said .presiding over the meeting Orissa Chief Secretary, Ajit Tripathy announced that a Bio-Diesel Park would be set up at Deras , in the outskirts of Bhubaneswar.

Following are excerpts from a sify.com report.

State-owned Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) is setting up an oil refinery-cum-petrochemical complex at Paradip in Orissa, with an installed capacity of 15 million metric tonnes per annum (MMTPA) at an estimated cost of Rs 25,646 crore.

”The project is expected to be completed by October 2011,” Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas Dinsha Patel said in a written reply to the Lok Sabha.

He said the land acquisition was carried out by Orissa Government by consent agreement under section 11(2) of the Land Acquisition Act, based on the compensation package for private land fixed by Orissa Government in October, 1999.

IOC has already acquired 3,347 acres of land for Paradip Refinery Project.

The progress made on the various phases of the project includes the construction of bridges over Santra Creek, approach road including railway over-bridge for the refinery connecting NH-5A to refinery site have been completed.

Tecnological selection for all major units has been completed.

Residential accommodation for construction phase, CISF colony, coastal approach road and green belt development are under various stages of construction.

Project Management Consultant (PMC) has been selected for Front End Engineering and Design (FEED) phase of the project on December 1, 2006.

Patel said the environmental clearance for the project has been received on July 6, 2007.

He added an amount of Rs 2281.87 crore has been sanctioned for Paradip Refinery project for carrying out pre-project activities, out of which, Rs 778.32 crore has been spent as on July 31, this year.

Business Standard in a report mentions the following numbers in regards to IOC’s plan in Paradip.

IOC is also planning around Rs 6,000 crore petrochemical complex at its upcoming 15 mtpa refinery in Paradip, Orissa.

Samaja reports that Paradeep oil refinery would function from October 2011.

However, there were many such announcements published earlier. Every time a new date is fixed. The project is already shifted 5 years from the actual schedule.

It gets reported once in a while [Hindu1, Hindu, Technoligence,iocl ] that IOC plans a new 300,000 barrels a day refinery and petrochemical complex at Paradip. Timesnow.tv has a recent report on this.