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NRL eyes exports to Bangladesh, Myanmar

Our Bureau

GUWAHATI, Sept. 18

THE seventh annual general meeting of Numaligarh Refinery Ltd (NRL), held last week at its registered office here, reviewed the progress of transition of the refinery from its project stage to the operative stage.

The AGM was presided by Mr S.N. Mathur, Director, NRL and Chairman & Managing Director, IBP Company Ltd, one of the promoters of NRL along with BPCL and the Assam Government.

The Rs 2,724-crore NRL, with a capacity of 3 mtpa, became fully operational in June last with the commissioning of the most critical and complex plant - the hydrocracker unit (HCU).

The phased commissioning process of the refinery began in April, 1999. Now, with the completion of the HCU and the marketing terminal, all the units of NRL are running simultaneously and products are being dispatched regularly. Product evacuation from th e marketing terminal, both by road and rail, began in the first week of April last.

As per official sources, during the current year, NRL is expected to process about 1.6 million tonnes of crude, and from next year onwards, it is expected to attain 100 per cent capacity utilisation.

Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) and Oil India Ltd (OIL) are supplying crude oil to NRL through a 13-km long 16-inch diameter diversion pipeline from Badulipar point of the OIL's existing arterial crude line.

Besides fully meeting the demand for major petroleum products of the North-Eastern States, NRL plans to export a part of its surplus products to Bangladesh and Myanmar.

For evacuation of products to other parts of the country, NRL had already procured 1,200 wagons on `own your wagon' basis. A support system of a tank lorry fleet is also being raised to arrange regular road bridging up to 10 per cent of surplus products to outside North-East locations.

As a third alternative mode of product evacuation to destinations outside the region, NRL is also studying the feasibility of moving surplus products by barges using the river Brahmaputra through Bangladesh to Haldia and Budge Budge.