REFINERY NEWS ROUNDUP: India's plants raise runs, elsewhere closures loom

London — Indian refineries are gradually raising runs, but closures loom elsewhere in Asia-Pacific.

Expected increases in refinery run rates on the back of an uptick in domestic oil product demand toward the end of the year have spurred purchases of low sulfur West African crude and various medium sour Middle Eastern grades from Indian refiners in recent weeks. Additional spot crude oil demand from Indian refiners has begun to emerge, with some heard to have made more purchases for December arrival from previous months.

Indian refiners are eyeing an increase in their run rates in the October-December quarter as demand for diesel and gasoline is expected to rebound with the easing of movement restrictions and the upcoming festive season, sources said.

In September, the average run for all categories of refinery in India improved to 86% from 76% in the previous month, the latest survey from the Indian oil ministry showed.

Market sources said Indian refiners could increase their processing rates to 90% by November and 100% or more by December.

India's domestic consumption of gasoline reached a seven-month high of 2.45 million mt in September, inching up for the second consecutive month by 2.91%. Meanwhile, India's gasoil consumption in September rose 13.2% month on month to 5.49 million mt, the latest provisional data from PPAC showed.

** India's No. 1 state-owned refiner Indian Oil Corp ran its refineries at a 90% rate in October, riding on improved demand for fuels except for jet fuel, company officials said Nov. 2, as Asia's third-largest economy gains momentum after the end of lockdown. IOC's processing demand for gasoline and diesel reached pre-coronavirus levels by the end of October. Jet fuel demand is still half pre-coronavirus levels as domestic air travel is yet to take off.

** India's No. 2 state-owned refiner Bharat Petroleum Corp. Ltd is running its refineries at 86% average rate riding on improved demand for gasoline that has reached a pre-coronavirus level as the economy unlocks, company officials said Oct. 29. They said the full run is expected to be in the April-June quarter of 2021 when the overall fuel demand would reach the pre-COVID-19 levels for all categories of fuels.

** India's Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd. will continue to operate its refinery at around 60%-70% of capacity in the near term, as poor middle distillate margins put earlier plans to ramp up rates on hold, industry sources with close knowledge of the matter said. The refiner had planned to continue raising run rates to around 75%-80% in October, but have pushed back plans to later in the fourth-quarter, choosing instead to wait for oil products demand to show improvement across the barrel.

** South Korea's SK Energy's Ulsan has shut its No. 3 crude distillation unit with a capacity of 170,000 b/d since late-September, earlier than original schedule of maintenance, for an unfixed period to lower crude run rate in response to poor refining margins amid the protracted coronavirus pandemic, an industry source said Oct. 22. The refiner originally planned to close the No. 3 CDU for maintenance for several weeks in the fourth quarter, but has shut it earlier than schedule to cope with falling refining margins, tumbling oil products demand and exports to overseas markets, the source said. The company had planned to raise crude throughput in a gradual manner in the third and fourth quarter to around 80%-85% as refining margins were expected to improve."Refining margins have slightly improved but still remain well lower than usual because of the recent resurgence of the coronavirus [cases]," an SK Energy official said.

** Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corp. plans to shut down its Tabangao refinery and transform the facility into an import terminal, the company said in a statement. The refinery has been shut since May 24, having been idled due to weak demand for domestic products.

** The last remaining domestic refinery in the Philippines, Petron's Bataan plant, may close should discussions regarding customs tax with the government fall through, the company said. That followed a local media report citing the company's President and CEO Ramon Ang saying that "for Petron Refinery, I will close that down if talks with the government will not succeed".

** New Zealand's Refining NZ has proposed lowering throughput at the country's sole refinery by 33% in 2021 in an attempt to keep the facility running at a "cash neutral" position amid ongoing discussions regarding its transition to an import terminal. The company in a statement said it was proposing to simplify operations by lowering the refinery's throughput to around 90,000 b/d or two-thirds of its capacity and ceasing bitumen production. Marsden Point refinery typically produces around 100,000-120,000 mt/year of bitumen and meets most of the country's bitumen demand, industry sources said. Against the backdrop of the simplification proposal, discussions are also continuing on plans to convert the Marsden Point refinery into an import terminal.

** Australia's second-largest refiner Viva Energy has again signaled the possible closure of its Geelong refinery, faced with thin margins and prolonged lackluster demand for refined oil products amid the extension of movement restrictions in the state of Victoria to contain a second wave of coronavirus infections. "The company is assessing other options to address operating losses, including the possibility of moving to a full shutdown of the facility," Viva Energy said in a statement on its website.

** Ampol, formally Caltex Australia, has announced the start of a "comprehensive review" of its Lytton refinery in Brisbane as a prolonged period of poor refining margins and an uncertain outlook threaten the closure of the 109,000 b/d facility. "The review will consider all options for the facility's operations and for the connected supply chains and markets it serves," Ampol said in the statement on its website. "These options include closure and permanent transition to an import model, the continuation of existing refining operations and other alternate models of operation, including the necessary investments required to execute each of the options," the company added. In addition to poor product demand as a result of movement restrictions to contain the spread of COVID-19, the company also attributed the Q3 loss to maintenance works at the refinery that had been brought forward to mid-May and extended by almost four months. The refinery restarted in early September and is expected to run at around 75% of capacity in Q4.

** The Maritime Union of Australia has urged the federal government to nationalize BP's Kwinana oil refinery, rather than allow it to be closed, as such a move would not only save many jobs, but also drastically improve Australia's fuel security. BP Australia on Oct. 30 said it was planning to shut its Kwinana refinery and convert it into a fuel import terminal, in a strategy aimed to better meet the needs of a changing oil market. The continued growth of large-scale, export-oriented refineries throughout Asia and the Middle East has structurally changed the Australian market, BP said, adding that regional oversupply and sustained low refining margins mean the Kwinana refinery is no longer economically viable.

** Indonesia's state-run Pertamina was heard to be keeping its Cilacap Refinery Unit IV operating at a run rate of around 80% in October, industry sources with knowledge of the matter told S&P Global Platts. "Cilacap [refinery] is keeping its rates at around 80%. Demand for gasoline has returned slightly but refining margins across the barrel is not that great to encourage the refinery to pull output level to full," one Singapore-based source said.

** Vietnam's Nghi Son refinery will keep its operating run rate above 100% of capacity in the near term, unchanged from August, even as a buildup of inventories put domestic buyers under pressure, industry sources with close knowledge of the matter said. Nghi-Son refinery in a rare move has emerged in the Asian spot market to offer cargoes of motor fuel as domestic inventories build steadily amid high refinery run rates, adding to supply pressure in weak regional gasoline and gasoil markets. However, run rates remain high despite Dung Quat having restarted at end September. "The [Nghi Son] refinery is still running very hard. There are more than enough inventories," one Vietnam based source said. "Dung Quat should also be running at a very high run rate; their normal is usually above 100% too," the source added.

** Commercial onshore light distillate stocks in Singapore, Southeast Asia's largest oil trading hub, hit another milestone in the week ended Oct. 21, when it slumped to an 8-month low on the back of easing gasoline imports. Industry participants noted that the tighter inventories came mainly on the back of easing gasoline imports from China, as loading activity was subdued in the first half of October due to the golden week holidays over Oct 1-9. That said, the slowdown in Singapore's import of Chinese gasoline is expected to be short lived, with at least one LR2 tanker, five LR1 tankers and nine MR tankers placed on subjects for mid-October loading for China to Singapore voyages, according to shipping sources.

** Thailand imported 980,539 b/d of crude and condensate in September, rising 35% year on year, according to data released Oct. 22 by the Customs Department. The country's crude imports in September also surged by 34.4% year on year to 925,863 b/d, from 688,716 b/d in the same month in 2019.

** Meanwhile, the Asian gasoline market is quickly approaching a new stage in its supply-demand landscape, with the growing possibility of more refinery closures in Southeast Asia and Oceania set to open new outlets for motor fuel exporters. Asian gasoline demand is expected to increase from 7.6 million b/d in the third quarter to 7.8 million b/d in Q4 as driving activity could pick up during the festive season, especially in India. As more outlets begin to open for motor fuel producers, Chinese refiners are aiming to lift gasoline exports to at least around 4 million mt in Q4, up 14% from 3.51 million mt exported in Q3, according to light and middle distillate traders and fuel distributors based in Singapore, China and Hong Kong surveyed by Platts.

NEW AND ONGOING MAINTENANCE

UPGRADES

LAUNCHES

New and ongoing maintenance

New and revised entries

Asia-Pacific

** Viva Energy, Australia's second-largest refiner, said it was delaying planned maintenance at its hydrofluoric acid alkylation unit to 2021 from later this year. The refinery will raise its run rates from early November following the scheduled completion of works at the residual catalytic cracking unit in late October, it said in a quarterly update. The RFCC, which had originally been planned to be shut in August, was taken offline in early July due to poor domestic demand for oil products.

** South Korea's SK Energy's Ulsan has shut its No. 3 crude distillation unit with a capacity of 170,000 b/d since late-September, earlier than original schedule of maintenance, for an unfixed period to lower crude run rate in response to poor refining margins amid the protracted coronavirus pandemic, an industry source said Oct. 22. The refiner originally planned to close the No. 3 CDU for maintenance for several weeks in the fourth quarter, but has shut it earlier than schedule to cope with falling refining margins, tumbling oil products demand and exports to overseas markets, the source said. The company has also shut its 80,000 b/d No. 2 RHDS, or residue hydro-desulfurization unit, since mid-October for maintenance for about a month, the source said. "With the No. 3 CDU remaining offline, SK Energy's crude run rate has stayed under 80%," the source said.

India

** Indian private refiner Nayara Energy has restarted one of its two crude distillation units at its Vadinar refinery, with the refiner starting to gradually raise run rates back to normal, industry sources with knowledge of the matter told S&P Global Platts. The restart brings to close around three to four weeks of scheduled maintenance at the 360,000 b/d CDU, which started in early-October and lasted until end-October. During the turnaround, the export-focused Vadinar refinery was reported to have dropped run rates by up to 90% in October, with only the refinery's second 40,000 b/d CDU operating without interruptions, Platts reported earlier. In September, Nayara had lowered the throughput at its refinery as it processed 1.46 million mt of crude, 5.11% lower than the 1.539 million mt in the previous month, the latest Petroleum Planning and Analysis Cell data showed With the expected restart of the refinery, Nayara was once again offering cargoes for November loading.

Existing entries

Asia-Pacific

** New Zealand's Marsden Point will undergo a scheduled turnaround at its No.1 crude distillation unit and continuous catalytic reforming platformer in 2021 that had been originally planned for 2020, the duration of which could not be confirmed.

** Taiwan's Formosa Petrochemical will restart its No. 1 residue desulfurisation unit and a residual fluid catalytic cracking unit on Nov. 10 from maintenance and repair works, a company source said. The No. 1 RDS was shut for a 40-day turnaround in early October, while the No. 2 RDS has been shut since it was hit by a fire on July 15. The fire-hit RDS is expected to restart in April 2021 at the earliest, Platts reported previously. Formosa had shut one of its RFCCs for repair works on Aug. 10 following the fire at the No. 2 RDS, Platts reported earlier. The RFCC was located near the fire-hit RDS unit, with the RDS unit typically supplying low sulfur feedstock to the RFCC. With the No. 1 RDS restarting on Nov. 10, the gasoline-producing RFCC, which has completed repair works, will also restart. Formosa has two RFCC units each of 84,000 b/d capacity. After the restart on Nov. 10, both RFCCs will operate at around 75% of capacity. Currently, the other RFCC is operating at 80% of capacity, up from 75% previously. The refinery is currently running its refinery in Mailiao at 160,000 b/d, or around 30% of capacity, and plans to raise operations to 220,000-230,000 b/d on average this month, a company source said. The refiner plans to further raise operations to 330,000 b/d, or around 60% of capacity on average next month, the source said, after it restarts the No. 1 residue desulfurisation unit, and residue fluid catalytic cracker on Nov. 10 from maintenance and repair works.

** Thai oil and petrochemical company IRPC Public Co. Ltd has taken several refining units offline after a fire at its Rayong facility in early September, industry sources with knowledge of the matter said. The units shut include a atmospheric residue desulfurization unit and residual deep catalytic cracker, sources said, adding that it was not yet clear when the units would come back online. The refinery had also taken a 25,000 b/d atmospheric residue desulfurization unit offline for catalyst changing in Q1, the company said in a Q1 report in May.

** Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corp. will be shutting down its Tabangao refinery, transforming the facility into an import terminal, the company said in a statement released on its website Aug. 13. The refinery has been shut since May 24, having been idled due to weak domestic product demand.

** South Korea's SK Energy plans to shut its 170,000 b/d No. 3 crude distillation at Ulsan for several weeks' maintenance in the fourth quarter, along with a 80,000 b/d No. 2 residue hydro-desulfurization unit, a company official said. SK Energy has five CDUs with a combined capacity of 840,000 b/d at its Ulsan complex.

** Sri Lankan Ceylon Petroleum Corp.'s Sapugaskanda refinery in 2021 is slated to undergo "a predicted full shutdown [that] is scheduled every two years generally," the company said in the statement. The exact period and duration of the turnaround has yet to be announced.

Upgrades

New and revised entries

** Pakistan's Attock Refinery has planned to install a hydrocracking facility, Attock Refinery Limited told analysts Oct. 27. An international consultant would be hired for finalizing the terms of the investment, the company said during the briefing, according to analysts. The company is in talks with the government for setting up joint upgrade projects including the hydrocracking facility and also mandatory lifting of local refineries' products by the oil marketing companies. Attock Refinery is considering two upgrade projects, including the hydrocracker as well as a Continuous Catalyst Regeneration (CCR), the company's officials told the analysts. After the implementation of these projects, Attock Refinery would be able to produce Euro V compliant gasoline and diesel along with full conversion of naphtha into mogas.

Existing entries

** Two separate consortiums have submitted bids for the engineering, procurement and construction contract to build, upgrade and expand project of Dung Quat refinery in central Vietnam, Dung Quat's operator Binh Son Refining and Petrochemical said in a statement Oct. 8. They is a consortium of Hyundai Engineering & Construction Co. Ltd. and Hyundai Engineering Co., Ltd.; and consortium of Technip Italy, Technip Geoproduction (M) Sdn Bhd, Technip France, PetroVietnam Technical Services Corp. and Vietnam's Lilama Corp. BSR said the upgrade and expansion project on 108 hectares will cost $1.8 billion. It will raise the capacity of Dung Quat to 8.5 million mt/year from current 6.5 million mt/year. The project will enable the refinery to diversify its crude inputs and meet Euro-V standards for its fuels. The EPC contract is expected to be implemented from August 2021, BSR said, without mentioning when the winner will be announced.

** Indonesia's state-owned oil and gas company Pertamina will use Honeywell UOP technologies to produce advanced biofuels at its Plaju and Cilacap refineries. Honeywell said. "Pertamina chose to work with UOP to build a greenfield biorefinery at Plaju and revamp its Cilacap refinery," Honeywell said. The biorefinery in Plaju will produce 20,000 b/d of vegetable oils and fat to produce renewable jet fuel, renewable diesel fuel and green LPG at the Plaju refinery. The Cilacap refinery will be revamped to process 6,000 b/d of vegetable oils and fats to produce advanced biofuels. Separately, Pertamina will go ahead and revamp its Cilacap refinery without Saudi Aramco, raising capacity from 348,000 b/d to 370,000 b/d, a company spokesperson said. The company had signed a heads of agreement on the revamp project in November 2015 with the Saudi oil major, but Aramco did not accept the figure that Pertamina had given on asset valuation, Platts has reported. Pertamina now plans to find other partners to work on the project, Fajriyah Usman said. Originally the project was expected to be completed in 2022 but now it may be delayed to 2023, she added. After the project is completed, Pertamina will be able to produce an additional 80,000 b/d of gasoline, 60,000 b/d of diesel and 40,000 b/d of jet fuel from Cilacap. The project includes increasing the crude distillation unit's capacity; raising the residual fluid catalytic cracking unit's capacity from 62,000 b/d to 81,000 b/d and adding a new 43,000 b/d hydro cracking unit.

** The Pakistan National Refinery has raised its capacity of Lube-1, the company said in a filing to the Pakistan Stock Exchange. The facility said in its statement that a two-stage distillation unit revamp of its Lube-1 Refinery has been successfully commissioned. This would enhance the installed crude oil processing capacity of the unit from 12,050 barrel per stream day (bpsd) to 17,000 bpsd, the statement said. Moreover, vacuum fractionation capacity has been raised from 5,200 bpsd to 6,600 bpsd, according to the statement. Separately, Pakistan Refinery has issued shares in order to upgrade and expand the plant into a deep conversion refinery, according to market sources and company documents. The proceeds will be used to revamp units and increase the gasoline and diesel yield. Following the sale of shares, Pakistan State Oil, the state-run biggest retail supplier of motor gasoline and diesel, and the refinery's biggest shareholder, increased its share in the refinery to 63.56% from 60%, Pakistan State Oil said in a filing to Pakistan Stock Exchange on July 29. It bought 40% of the right shares that Pakistan Refinery issued. Banks, pension funds, the general public and Hascol Ltd. own the rest of the shares.

** State-run Indian Oil Corp-owned Gujarat refinery's capacity expansion project is set to be over by Sept.30 2024, company officials said Sept.30, a delay of one and a half years from the previous deadline. The delay is primarily due to the rescheduling of the project execution timelines for the pending projects as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. The initial deadline for the capacity expansion project was contemplated for 2020. The initial deadline was deferred due to the making of the feasibility report. The expansion plan will help the refinery on the west coast to process cheaper heavy crude grades and improve profitability. The refinery with its expanded capacities would process crude grades from Kuwait, Basrah light (Iraq), Mangla from Rajasthan, and local grades from the oil fields of north and south of Gujarat. Under the expansion project, the existing smaller capacity atmospheric unit and vacuum units will be replaced by a large atmospheric vacuum unit (AVU) for raising the operational efficiency of the refinery. The project also involves a revamp of the existing hydrogen generation unit for the production of syngas and hydrogen, a new n-butanol processing unit and a revamp of the linear alkylbenzenes (LAB) unit.

** Indian Oil Corp. owned Paradip refinery will install the first stage of a Grassroot Needle Coker Unit by using its own in-house technology, company officials said Sept. 1. The proposed unit will have a Calcined Needle Coke, or CNC, production capacity of 56 kilotons/year. Currently, the entire Needle Coke requirement of the country (80-100 kilotons/year) is met via imports. The company does not plan any expansion for its Paradip refinery, whose overall capacity is 15 million mt/yr.

** Hengyi Industries plans to more than double the capacity at its integrated refinery and aromatics complex in Brunei to around 455,000 b/d, from its current 160,000 b/d, over three years, the company said in a statement. The expansion will raise the refinery's gasoline output by 2.55 million mt/year, gasoil by 1.94 million mt/year, jet fuel by 1.84 million mt/year and LPG by 190,000 mt/year, according to the statement released the week ended Sept. 18. The refinery currently has a combined gasoline, diesel and jet fuel output of around 6 million mt/year. There are also plans to increase olefin/polyolefin production capacity.

** Indonesia's Pertamina is planning to build a petrochemical plant at its Balongan refinery in West Java and will cooperate in the project with Taiwan's CPC. The project is expected to be completed in 2026 and once it is on stream Indonesia will reduce imports of petrochemical products. Pertamina will build the project in three phases. The first phase is to increase refining capacity from to 150,000 b/d by 2022 from 125,000 b/d currently. The second and third phase will increase the product yield from the refinery, including from the new petrochemical plant. Under the plan, Pertamina and CPC will build a naphtha cracker that is expected to substitute imports. The naphtha cracker will produce at least 1 million mt/year of ethylene. Pertamina is also cooperating with Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) in the Balongan refinery project.

** SK Energy has delayed full operation at its newly built 40,000 b/d desulfurization unit due to "deterioration in market conditions" in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. The refiner completed mechanical construction of the vacuum residue desulfurization, or VRDS, unit on January 31, three months ahead of original schedule, to supply IMO 2020 low sulfur marine fuels to the market. The company previously aimed to start commercial production by the end of March.

** HPCL's $3.2 billion project to expand Vizag's capacity to 300,000 b/d is in advance stage of completion, company officials said. Originally, the expansion project was scheduled for completion in July 2020. But officials did not provide any specific timeframe for the completion of the project. The project aims to install primary processing units such as a CDU, replacing one of the three existing CDUs, a hydrocracker, and a naphtha isomerization unit.

** Pakistan's Byco Petroleum Pakistan on its website said it plans to build an aromatics plant with a capacity of 27,300 b/d to produce benzene, mixed xylene, paraxylene, orthoxylene, C9 and raffinate.

** Hyundai Engineering has won a $2.17 billion deal to upgrade the Balikpapan refinery in Indonesia. Hyundai Engineering will "be responsible for the engineering, procurement and construction for the facility upgrade," which would take 53 months for completion and increase the refinery's capacity from 260,000 b/d to 360,000 b/d. Completion was expected in 2023. Separately, Indonesia's Pertamina and Mubadala signed a Refinery Investment Principle Agreement to evaluate any possibility to cooperate in processing sector, including to accelerate Pertamina's Balikpapan project that is expected to require about $5.5 billion of investment.

** IOC's refinery in the western state Gujarat will have the largest capacity among its portfolio of refineries by 2022-23, company officials said. IOC plans to raise the capacity of the Gujarat refinery to 360,000 b/d by March 2023 from the current 275,000 b/d.

** IOC plans to expand the atmospheric and vacuum unit at its Barauni refinery to boost its overall capacity to 9 million mt/year by 2021.

** At Thailand's Bangchak Petroleum an expansion plan is under way to ramp up the 120,000 b/d refinery's production capacity to 140,000 b/d in 2020, through installation of a continuous catalyst regeneration unit. Under the expansion plan, the company will also debottleneck the hydrocracker, which could expand the refinery's production capacity by 10%.

** Saudi Aramco and S-Oil signed a memorandum of understanding to collaborate on a $6 billion steam cracker and olefin downstream project at Onsan due for completion in 2024, which will produce ethylene and other basic chemicals from naphtha and off-gas.

** ExxonMobil announced a final investment decision at its Singapore complex. The project includes an expansion aimed at converting "fuel oil and other bottom-of-the-barrel crude products into higher-value lube base stocks and distillates." Startup is set for 2023. The expansion will add capacity to increase cleaner fuels output with lower sulfur content by 48,000 b/d.

** Reliance Industries Ltd. has received clearance to raise the capacity of its export-oriented Jamnagar refinery on the west coast of India by 17% to 41 million mt (820,000 b/d). By 2030, RIL aims to raise its total refining capacity -- including its domestic-focused refinery -- at Jamnagar to 98.2 million mt/year. Reliance currently is 1.37 million b/d, of it 707,000 b/d for the export and 660,000 b/d domestic. The export one will increase capacity to 820,000 b/d. By 2030, it aims to raise its overall capacity to 1.96 million b/d.

** India's IOC plans to raise the capacity of its Panipat refinery to 25 million mt/year by 2021 to meet growing demand for oil products. The refinery's capacity is 15 million mt/year.

** India's cabinet has approved a project to expand the capacity of the Numaligarh refinery to 9 million mt/year from 3 million mt/year.

** Nayara Energy is seeking the renewal of environmental approval to double capacity at its Vadinar refinery as the previous approval had been given to Essar Oil. It had planned to double the refining capacity at Vadinar to 40 million mt/year.

** Petron plans to expand and upgrade its Bataan refinery in Limay, increasing its capacity by 55% to produce 75,000 b/d of refined products and 1 million mt/year of aromatics. There was no timeline for when the expansion will take place. The refinery's capacity will be increased by 100,000 b/d of condensates and light crude oils, from current capacity of 180,000 b/d.

** IOC has signed up energy technology and infrastructure solutions provider CB&I for a residue upgrading unit at its Mathura refinery in north India.

** The Philippines' Petron Corp. has been considering a plan to more than double capacity at its 88,000 b/d Port Dickson refinery in Malaysia to 178,000 b/d.

Launches

Existing entries

** India's proposed new 1.2 million b/d Ratnagiri refinery on the west coast is still facing delay due to "local issues", the country's Minister of Petroleum & Natural Gas and Minister of Steel Dharmendra Pradhan said Oct. 13. Construction at the site was expected to start this year but there have been issues relating to land acquisition which had stalled the project. The location of the project has already moved once, from Ratnagiri district to Raigad district. The refinery is now expected to be commissioned in 2025, according to industry sources.

** Chennai Petroleum Corp. Ltd's proposed 9 million mt refinery at Cauvery Basin in South India has received clearance from an environment ministry panel, company officials said. The refinery project has been approved by CPCL's parent company Indian Oil Corp., India's No.1 state-owned refiner. IOC holds a 51.89% share in CPCL. The proposed project will be a state-of-the-art modern refinery cum petrochemical project, including a polypropylene unit. The refinery will have capacities to produce around 4 million mt/year diesel, 1.8 million mt/y gasoline, both Euro 6 grades and 0.6 million m/y of LPG, and 0.3 million mt/y jet fuel. The refinery will be designed to process 50% each of a mix of Basrah Light, Basrah Heavy grades and 100% with respect to Iranian Light. CPCL currently operates two refineries with a combined capacity of 11.5 million mt/year in Tamil Nadu.

** Pak-Arab Oil Refinery Limited will start physical works on its coastal refinery in H1 2021, after almost 13-years of consecutive delays to the project, industry sources with close knowledge of the matter said. Following the start of the works, the refinery is expected to come online in 2025-2026, and will increase the country's refining capacity by 250,000 b/d. PARCO also operates the 100,000 b/d Mid-Country Refinery in Mahmoodkot. The project for the coastal refinery was approved in 2007, but construction was subsequently delayed due to issues regarding funding.

** Infrastructure for Mongolia's first refinery in Dornogobi (Dornogovi) has been completed with construction of the groundwork for the refinery's site underway, according to local media report. At a government meeting, the importance of completing the project on time has been highlighted. It is operated by the state owned Mongolian Oil Refinery. Negotiations with the company for an EPC contract have been completed and preparations are underway for signing the contract. A working group will be set to accelerate the completion of the project. Mongolia's first refinery is expected to reach full capacity by 2026, S&P Global Platts has previously reported.

** Malaysia's Pengerang Refining and Petrochemical, also known as PRefChem or RAPID, plans to delay the restart its fire-hit refinery in the southern state of Johor from September to early 2021, following which, operations at the integrated petrochemical complex will resume, sources with direct knowledge of the matter told S&P Global Platts. This was due to "economic reasons," a source close to the matter said. The restart had earlier been scheduled for September, with full commercial operations targeted for late 2020, Platts reported earlier. The refinery was shut March 15 due to an explosion at a diesel hydrotreater unit that led to five fatalities, Platts reported at the time. The resulting feedstock disruption led to the shutdown of its naphtha-fed steam cracker and downstream petrochemical plants. This was the second major incident at the Pengerang Integrated Complex, which was started up in Q3 2019. In April 2019, there was an explosion and fire at the atmospheric residue desulfurization unit when the refinery was in the commissioning stage.

** Indonesia's Pertamina decided to postpone the construction of a proposed 300,000 b/d Bontang refinery in East Kalimantan, a senior official said. "Bontang is still on the list, but currently we are focusing on the existing ones," Pertamina's mega project refinery and petrochemical director Ignatius Tallulembang said, adding that upgrading the existing refineries is "our priority". Ignatius Tallulembang said that the construction has been going on "but our partner stopped. So we hold the project while we are assessing more detail on oil supply and demand. If everything is clear, we will discuss again with our stake holders." The proposed refinery is targeted to produce at least 60,000 b/d of gasoline and 124,000 b/d of diesel and the products will meet Euro IV specifications, with Pertamina prioritizing domestic marketing first.

** A Rosneft and Pertamina joint venture has signed a contract with Spanish Tecnicas Reunidas to design the construction of an oil refinery and petrochemical complex in Tuban, Indonesia, Rosneft said. Commissioning of the plant in East Java is expected within the next five years. Primary processing design capacity is planned at up to 15 million mt/year, planned capacity at the petrochemical complex includes more than 1 million mt/year for ethylene and 1.3 million mt/year for aromatic hydrocarbons.

** Sri Lanka has approved a $20 billion refinery project at the port town of Hambantota. The announcement follows the inauguration of a smaller refinery complex at the port, which has backing from the Oman Oil Company.

** Iran remains open to investing in a planned expansion project by Chennai Petroleum Corp Ltd to set up a 180,000 b/d refinery at Cauvery Basin at Nagapattinam, in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadhu, Indian oil ministry officials said. IOC holds a 51.9% share in CPCL, while NIOC holds 15.4% through Swiss subsidiary Naftiran Intertrade.

** Global trader Vitol is looking to build a 30,000 b/d refinery in southern Malaysia's Johor state. The project involves a simple refinery to be built at Tanjung Bin at VTTI's ATB tank farm. ATB, or ATT Tanjung Bin Sdn Bhd, is a terminal 100% owned by VTTI. Vitol co-owns VTTI.

** Haldia Petrochemicals Ltd.'s proposal to invest $4.05 billion in an integrated refinery and petrochemicals facility in Balasore, India, has been granted approval by the Odisha government.

** Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are in talks to develop a 200,000-300,000 b/d refinery in Balochistan's Gwadar district for $10 billion.

** A new HPCL project in Barmer, India, is due for completion by March 2023.

** India's big refinery project in Maharashtra, being developed by state-owned IOC, HPCL and BPCL, will start up around 2022-23.