Article from Business Standard,29th April,2012 By Pranab Kumar Meher

HPCL-Mittal Energy Joint Venture

Bathinda refinery, a project of HPCL-Mittal Energy

Joint Venture, starts operations on 29th April,2012.

The Bathinda refinery is the 24th in the country,which

already has a surplus refining capacity of 71 million tonnes.

The refinery is estimated of Rs 21,500 crore.

Project Overview
It is built in record 42 months and is Mittals first

greenfield project in India. Finally, an LN Mittal project kicks of in India.

The refinery has a capacity of processing nine million

tonne of crude a year (180,000 barrels per day) and built by HPCL-Mittal Energy Ltd.
Mittal has invested in the venture through Mittal Energy

Investment Pte Ltd, Singapore.

`Failed Attempts of Mittal in India

The starting of the refinery's operations comes after

Mittal's earlier two attempts to carve out a space in the Indian oil industry failed. to go beyond preliminary study.

His venture with HPCL for a petrochem hub at Vizag failed His oil shipping venture with state-run explorer ONGC

never took off, while another tie-up with ONGC for acquisition of overseas acquisitions fizzled out, while trying to access fields in Kazakhstan.

Benefits of the Bathinda Refinery

It would cater to the inland petroleum demand in Punjab,

J & K, UP, Uttarakhand, Haryana, Rajasthan and Delhi.

It will help cut down on the cost of transporting products

from far away refineries to Northern India.

HPCL which currently depends on Reliance Industries and

Essar, will now directly source products from the refinery in Bhatinda.

Advantages of Joint-Venture
With the Joint-Venture, the Bathinda refinery has

Nelson Complexity Index, which enable it to maximise value-added products even from heavy/sour crude oil.
Besides the refinery, HMEL has also diversified into

upstream oil and gas exploration.

The Joint-Venture has participating interests in three

blocks in the country.

Effects on Imports and Exports

With an increase in refinerys capacity to 18mt in

future, it could boost Indias exports and open fuel sales to Pakistan.
Pakistan has allowed the import of fuels, including

petrol and diesel, from India in November last year.

As the distance between Bathinda and Lahore is about

160 Km, there would be a rise of export of fuels.

 The refinery's proximity to Pakistan will allow HPCL-

Mittal to export fuels through pipeline and offer more discounts than its rivals.
The refinery is adding to India's oil refining capacity,

which is to rise by 15% to 214 million tonnes a year by the end of current fiscal.

Thank You