Indian Oil plans to invest over Rs 13 billion in West Bengal in the next two years in various disciplines that include BS VI compliance of IOC’s Haldia refinery, unveiling diesel emission additives, new retail outlets, solar power modules, ethanol tankers and LPG bottling plant.
Pritish Bharat, executive director of Indian Oil, said that from April 1, 2020, IOC will sell only BS VI-compliant fuel (both petrol and diesel) from all their outlets which will have a sulphur content of 10 PPM compared to 50PPM in BS-IV petrol. “First BS-VI fuel supply has already been made to West Bengal from IOC’s Mathura terminal,” he added.
According to Bharat, for BS IV diesel engines IOC has come out with diesel emission additive which once fitted with the engine will be compliant with BS VI norms and would be able to use BSVI diesel.
IOC is setting up a plant to manufacture this diesel emission additive in Budge Budge with an investment of Rs 1.50 billion. IOC is also augmenting the bio fuel tanking and ethanol tankage capacity across its terminals in West Bengal by 5000 kilo litres. The current tankage capacity of Ethanol is only 400 kilo litres while for bio diesel it is 9,000 KL. The company is investing over Rs 5 billion in its Haldia refinery for switching production line from BS IV to BS VI.
The oil major is also adding 100 retail outlets in West Bengal from its current tally of 1,200. “All the new outlets will be company-owned-dealer-operated (CODO) and we are investing Rs 1 billion,” he added. IOC has 40% CODO outlets in the state and remaining 60% are dealer-owned-dealer-operated (DODO).
Elaborating the plan for LPG, he added that it is setting up a new bottling plant with an investment of Rs 1.63 billion in Kharagpur. “The LPG penetration in Bengal has gone up from 40.5% to 94% in the last five years. The current national average is 96%. Earlier, 8.66 million households in the state had LPG connection now. The number is 29 million now,” he added.
