MUMBAI, Nov 23: BPCL and its joint venture partner oil major Shell have selected a site near Allahabad for setting up a seven million tonne per annum (MMTPA) refinery in Uttar Pradesh.

The 2,500 acre site, located 45 km south-east of Allahabad, was selected last week after surveying three other places, BPCL's executive director of joint ventures, JBS Hazooria said during the weekend. He, however, declined to name the other three sites.

The project, covering a 200 acre green belt, would include a marketing terminal and crude import facilities along the west coast.

Hazooria said an agreement would be signed with Shell shortly on the site selection and a detailed feasibility report (DFR) would be prepared.

The grass-root refinery is estimated to cost Rs 70,700 million, including a foreign exchange component of Rs 20,200 million. The project is scheduled to be mechanically completed within 42 months from the date of final approval of the DFR by the government.

Hazooria said the six MMPTA joint venture with Oman Oil Company at Bina in Madhya Pradesh and three MMPTA refinery at Numaligarh in Assam, a joint venture with IBP Company, were the two projects which are expected to be completed by the year 2000 and December 1998 respectively. Speaking to newspersons at BPCL refinery, executive director (refinery) M Rohtagi said projects worth Rs 1,024 crore were under various stages of completion.

These were the 252 km Mumbai-Manmad pipeline (Rs 400 crore), resulting in lower road and rail traffic for movement of petroleum products, diesel hydrodesulphurisation project (DHDS) and associated facilities to produce lower sulphur diesel (Rs 592 crore) and provision of high efficiency boilers (Rs 32 crore) resulting in lower fuel consumption and thus reduce emissions.

Asked what steps BPCL had taken in the wake of the fire at HPCL refinery at Visakhapatnam, Rohatgi said adequate measures had been taken at Mumbai and it was spending nearly Rs 50 to Rs 60 crore annually for modernisation of necessary safety equipment. "We will have to wait and implement recommendations, if any, of the committee, which is going into the cause of the refinery fire," he said.

The general manager (operations), SP Khandare, said BPCL refinery had been carrying out internal safety audits.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.