Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) on Friday announced that the capacity of the most advanced refinery at Panipat shall be expanded from 12 million tonnes to 15 million tonnes, per annum, and the expansion would be completed by November this year at a cost of Rs. 14,000 crore.

The near by naphtha cracker complex and the hydro cracker project at Haldia would also be commissioned this year.

IOC Director (Refineries), B. N. Bankapur, said that the commissioning of the naphtha cracker and the downstream polymer units at Panipat would make it an integrated refinery cum petrochemicals complex.

He further added that this expansion shall ensure better supply of petroleum products to the North West region.

Regarding other major ongoing projects, he said that IOC was upgrading project at Gujarat Refinery at a cost of Rs 5,882 crore, scheduled for completion in January 2010, which would ensure meeting of the product quality requirement of MS/HSD (motor spirit/high speed diesel oil) to Euro-III/IV levels, enable processing of increased of high sulphur crude and improve the distillate yield.

He further added, “In order to achieve quality standards, a clutch of petrol and diesel quality upgradation projects are set to be commissioned by the end of 2009 at various IOC refinery locations.”