Bharat Petroleum Corp (BPCL), is working on various plans to expand its total refining capacity to over 40 million tonne by March 2017.

It wholly owns and operates the 12 million tpa refinery at Mumbai and 9.5 million tpa refinery at Kochi. BPCL also has 74 per cent stake in Bharat Oman Refineries which operated the 6 million tpa refinery at Bina in Madhya Pradesh and 61.65 per cent stake in Numaligarh Refinery which runs the 3 million tpa refinery in Numaligarh, Assam.

BPCL currently has a total refining capacity of 30.5 million tonne across 4 refineries and plans to expand 3 of these with an estimated investment of Rs 17,000 crore over the next 4 years to raise the total refining capacity to over 40 million tonne. It will expand the Kochi refinery to 15.5 million tonne by setting up a 6 million tpa unit.

At the Mumbai refinery, BPCL is planning to invest Rs 3,400 crore, to revamp its existing diesel hydro-desulphurisation unit and set up a fluidised catalytic cracking gasoline splitter unit. It will also set up a 1.2 million tpa continuous catalytic regenerator reformer and de-bottleneck the hydrocracker unit. The company also plans to set up a combined crude distillation unit and vacuum distillation unit and dismantle the existing CDU and VDU which are very old.

The expansion plan of the new CDU/VDU will be commissioned by February 2015, and the other smaller projects will be completed by December 2013. The company has meanwhile initiated a study to look into possibilities of expanding the landlocked Bina refinery. The company receives crude at the refinery through a 935 km pipeline from Vadinar in Gujarat.

Meanwhile, BPCL is planning to set up a greenfield project in north India.