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New Delhi: India's Bharat Petroleum (BPCL) is likely to process 9.5 per cent less crude at its two key refineries in the next fiscal year beginning April compared with this year, due to planned shutdowns, its director of refineries said yesterday.
"Next year, our throughput at Mumbai and Kochi will be less than the nameplate capacity because we have to take a shutdown at Kochi to raise capacity and at Mumbai it would be a maintenance shutdown," R. K. Singh told Reuters in an interview.
BPCL runs a 240,000-bpd refinery in Mumbai, India's financial hub, and another 150,000-bpd refinery in Kochi in the southern state of Kerala. Its subsidiary, Numaligarh Refinery, runs a 60,000-bpd refinery in north-east India, where processing depends on crude availability.
Annual target
In the current financial year, BPCL hopes to process 260,000 bpd at Mumbai and 160,000 bpd at Kochi. But in the next fiscal year it plans to process 230,000 bpd at Mumbai and 150,000 bpd at Kochi.
BPCL will shut half of its Mumbai refinery for 35 days for maintenance turnaround in December-January, he said, adding two separate shutdowns are needed at Kochi to raise its capacity by 40,000 bpd.
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