Rajasthan, HPCL ink joint venture agreement for Barmer oil refinery
The Rajasthan government on Thursday inked a joint venture agreement with oil major Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL) for a proposed oil refinery in Barmer
The Rajasthan government on Thursday inked a joint venture agreement with oil major Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL) for a proposed oil refinery in Barmer.
In the joint venture company ‘HPCL Rajasthan Refinery Limited’, HPCL, a government of India enterprise with navratna status, will hold 74% stake and the state government 26%. The project would be cost ₹43,129 crore.
A day after receiving approval from the central government, the agreement was signed on Thursday by Rajasthan mines secretary Aparna Arora and HPCL director (finance) J Ramaswami at an event in chief minister Vasundhara Raje’s residence here.
Raje expressed her satisfaction over the progress made so far in the project and directed officials to speed up work after receiving nod from the union environment ministry.
“All the necessary sanctions for the refinery projects will be received on time and our effort is to start work after ground breaking ceremony. The re-negotiation between HPCL and the government has resulted in saving of ₹40,000 crore of project cost. After the reformulation of terms, the state now will receive 12% return on investment, which was 2% in previous agreement,” said Raje.
She said the Barmer refinery will be the country’s first with BS-VI standards which will help in environment conservation. Bharat stage (BS) emission standard set up by central government to regulate the output of air pollutants. BS-VI norms will have more strict emission norms.
The CM directed officials to prepare youth for refinery related industries through ITI and skill development. “Explore possibilities of setting up a petroleum institute in western Rajasthan,” said Raje.
The refinery is being setting up to produce petroleum from crude oil and other petro-chemical products but this will also strengthen economy of not just Barmer but of western Rajasthan.
The western Rajasthan will come up as hub of industries related to petroleum, which will generate direct and indirect employment opportunities.
Raje asked officials of industry department to encourage local small entrepreneurs for setting up ancillary industries.
The oil refinery in Rajasthan will be first in the country with petro-chemical complex; work will be completed in four years record time and generation of electricity with waste petcock.
Refinery deal
• April 18, 2017- fresh MoU signed between HPCL and government
• May 22 – task force constituted
• August 16 – Central government approves the project