BPCL keen on Bina Refinery IPO next fiscal

The second largest oil marketing company Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) is hopeful of taking its 6-million tonne Bina Refinery public next fiscal, its chairman and managing director R K Singh has said.

"If all goes as planned and if we report net profit next fiscal, which we are sure, and subject to market conditions, we hope to get the Bina facility (Bharat Oman Refinery) listed next fiscal," Mr Singh, who will be demitting office this month-end, said.

He also said the Bina facility has already been making cash profit since the past fiscal and is operating at 106 per cent of its capacity and is getting the highest GRM (gross refining margin) for the company at $9.1 per barrel. GRM, Mr Singh claimed, is on par with the best in the industry.

Earlier, the company had said it would divest 24 per cent of its 49 per cent stakes in the refinery to public, but this time around Singh did not specify any particular divestment range.

Commissioned in January 2011, the 6-million tonne or 120,000 bpd of Arab mix crude processing Bina refinery in Madhya Pradesh is under a Rs 2,500-crore expansion to take its capacity to 9 mt.

BPCL owns 49 per cent or majority stake in the Rs 11,397-crore Bina Refinery with the rest being held by Oman Oil Company, the Madhya Pradesh government and financial institutions.

BPCL has laid a 935-km-long pipeline from Vadinar on the Gujarat coast to Bina to transport the imported crude.

The second largest state-run refiner, which has four refineries, is also on an aggressive Rs 45,000-crore expansion plan over the next three years.

The biggest of this is the Rs 14,270-crore expansion of the Kochi Refinery to take its capacity to 15.5 mt from the present 9.5 mt and, followed by the 12 mt Mumbai Refinery which is being expanded to Rs 14 mt and Bina to 9 mt from 6 mt.

The Mumbai expansion is being done through change of its crude oil distillation unit. The company also owns majority in the the 3-mt Numaligarh Refinery in Assam. The company will spend Rs 10,000 crore on the Numaligarh facility to expand its capacity from 9 mt in which it owns 61.65 per cent.

BPCL said it is also setting up a specialty petchem complex in Kochi, adjoining its refinery there at a cost of Rs 5,000 crore, which will mark the PSU's entry into the petrochemical sector.