Assam based Numaligarh Refinery Limited (NRL) on Sunday received its first consignment of imported Miri Crude Oil from Petronas, Malaysia.
A railway rake comprising of 50 Tank Wagons and carrying around 2,760 Metric Tonnes of Crude Oil reached Numaligarh from Haldia port, West Bengal from where it was dispatched. Miri Crude Oil is low in sulphur and is close in specifications to Assam Crude Oil, also known as Sweet Crude for its low sulphur content, which the refinery is currently processing from the Oil fields of Upper Assam.
NRL stated that this is for the first time that Crude Oil is being imported by NRL to be processed in the Refinery. This would help NRL attain better capacity utilization of its existing refining capacity of 3 MMTPA (million metric tonnes per annum); which has till now been constrained due to non-availability of adequate domestic Crude Oil.
The Refinery has also embarked on a mega Refinery expansion project to treble its capacity from 3 to 9 MMTPA and developing capabilities for sourcing of Crude Oil augurs well for its future.
‘This landmark development would assist us in enhancing Refinery throughput and as our distillate yield is high, this will increase our margins’, Managing director of NRL , S.K. Barua said on the development.
The refinery said, “Crude Oil availability in North East region has gradually declined over the years and is not able to cater to the requirement of 7 MMTPA for all the 4 North East refineries put together. As a result, the Guwahati – Barauni Pipeline which was earlier being used to transport Crude Oil from the region to other parts of the country is now being utilized for reverse flow of Crude Oil into the region”.
