A significant part of this capacity will come from a single refinery of Reliance Petroleum (50 million tonnes), two greenfield projects of 15 million tonnes each at Deogarh/Ratnagiri and Krishnapatnam and projects of Indian Oil Corporation (133.74 million tonnes), Bharat Petroleum Corporation (37 million tonnes), Hindustan Petroleum Corporation (34.2 million tonnes) and Essar Oil with 18 million tonnes. The stand alone refiners, Cochin and Madras Refineries will have reached capacities of 13.5 million tonnes and 9.5 million tonnes respectively while that of Bongaigaon Refinery and Petrochemicals would be 2.7 million tonnes.

Interestingly, the other players who would have entered the scene include the Soros group with six million tonnes, Nippon Denro(Ispat) with nine million tonnes and Ashok Leyland (Hindujas) with two million tonnes.

The expert group's projections have been made for two periods, one for 2006-07 and the other between 2007-2020. In the first, total refining capacity is estimated to be 233.45 million tonnes, going up to 336.45 million tonnes by 2020.

The team has assumed that till 2006-07, of the capacity of 233.45 million tonnes, the RPL project will the largest at 27 million tonnes, followed by IOC's Koyali refinery in Gujarat with 25 million tonnes. Essar Oil's refinery would be 11 million tonnes while HPCL and BPCL would have individual refining capacities of nine million tonnes at their facilities in Bhatinda and Bina.

By this time, IOC's east coast refinery at Paradip and the southern project at Nagapattinam will have been commissioned with a combined capacity of 21 million tonnes while BPCL would also be ready with its seven million tonne facility in Allahabad. Similarly, Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals (MRPL, the jointventure of the AV Birla group and HPCL) will have reached a capacity of nine million tonnes by 2006-07.

Between 2007 and 2020, another 103 million tonnes of capacity could be added inclusive of the two greenfield projects of 30 million tonnes. RPL is estimated by this time to be India's largest refinery with 50 million tonnes while IOC's Koyali facility will have been expanded to 32 million tonnes.

Interestingly, by this time, IOC's Nagapattinam refinery will have been expanded to 18 million tonnes from nine million tonnes as also the Paradip project to the same level. BPCL's Allahabad and Bina refineries would, similarly, have been expanded to 12 million tonnes each. Essar Oil is estimated to be 18 million tonnes by this period but the major expansions will have been done by IOC in practically all its refineries. Thus, despite RPL's size, the Fortune 500 company would be the largest refiner in the country with a total capacity of close to 140 million tonnes.

The expert team has observed in its reportthat a major shortfall in availability of products would be felt in the north-west and Mumbai-Goa regions and marginally in other regions except Haldia fed region where there would be surplus product availability by 2020. Therefore, it is envisaged that capacity augmentation of refineries would take mostly in the north-north west and west coast.