The expected commercial startup of a new fluid catalytic cracker at Indian state-owned refiner Hindustan Petroleum Corp. Ltd.'s Mumbai refinery has been deferred by one month to January 2011, an industry source said Tuesday. Works on the new 1.4 million mt/year FCC at HPCL's 6.3 million mt/year Mumbai refinery have been delayed, and the unit is now expected to initiate the startup process in December, instead of this month. This is to be followed by the starting of commercial operations in January 2011. Once completed, the unit has the capacity to produce 1 million mt/year of Euro 3 and Euro 4 equivalent gasoline. HPCL is currently seeking 74,000 mt of Euro 3 and Euro 4 gasoline, in two parcels, for delivery into Mundra in the second half of December, after having earlier covered 32,000 mt of import demand into Mundra for early-December.
The additional demand has emerged largely because of the delay in the startup of the new FCC at the Mumbai refinery, the source added. Meanwhile, a delay in starting up commercial operations of the No. 2 FCC at HPCL's 8.3 million mt/year (166,700 b/d) Visakhapatnam refinery by more than two weeks have also prompted HPCL's additional spot purchase of 30,000 mt of Euro 3 gasoline for end-November into Visakhapatnam. The unit, which revamped and expanded to 1.6 million mt/year from 700,000 mt/year, is expected to start operations in the week of September 22, the source added.
The additional demand has emerged largely because of the delay in the startup of the new FCC at the Mumbai refinery, the source added. Meanwhile, a delay in starting up commercial operations of the No. 2 FCC at HPCL's 8.3 million mt/year (166,700 b/d) Visakhapatnam refinery by more than two weeks have also prompted HPCL's additional spot purchase of 30,000 mt of Euro 3 gasoline for end-November into Visakhapatnam. The unit, which revamped and expanded to 1.6 million mt/year from 700,000 mt/year, is expected to start operations in the week of September 22, the source added.
