The Union Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas has approved a revised project cost of Rs 28,026 crore for the Numaligarh Refinery Expansion Project to increase refining capacity from three million tpa to nine million tpa.
This will be a single largest investment in the North-East India. The original planned configuration of the upcoming six MMTPA has been reconfigured and improved to make it petrochemical ready, focusing on upgradation of refinery residue by using new technology of Ebullated Bed Residue Hydro-Treater along with high severity Petro-FCC unit.
As per NRL with adoption of state-of-the-art technology in this configuration and addition of extremely complex schemes like residue hydrocracking, the refinery will be able to process heavier crude oil and maximise production of distillates.
This adoption of technology led to an increase in the project cost from Rs 22,594 crore to Rs 28,026 crore.
With increased distillate yield, NRL will also be able to increase its LPG production, thereby completely eliminating LPG deficit in the North-Eastern region.