IOC says Maha govt positive about Ratnagiri refinery

Mumbai, Mar 1 () Indian Oil Corporation, equity partner in the proposed mega West coast refinery, has held many rounds of talks with the new Maharashtra government and is hopeful of the project coming on-stream, a top company official said.

The statement from Indian Oil Chairman Sanjiv Singh comes amidst local media reports that people in the Nanar region, where the USD 60 billion-plus project was originally planned and then shelved following opposition from the Shiv Sena when it was part of the previous BJP government, are demanding the refinery come up in their area now.

Shiv Sena leader and Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray has shelved many large projects announced by the last BJP-Sena government.

Thackeray has put on hold Prime Minister Narendra Modi's pet bullet train project, and has also not given the go-ahead for the world's first Hyperloop project that seeks to connect Mumbai with Pune and reduce travel time to flat 20 minutes from over 3 hours now.

Following the objection by the Sena, the last Devendra Fadnavis government had proposed an alternative location for the refinery at Roha, off the east coast of the megapolis.

"As we are on course to finalise the technical configuration for the refinery (both Engineers India Ltd and American engineering consultancy Jacobs have submitted their final proposals), we are also engaging the state in the right earnest. We met them a number of times since December and we are confident that the project will go ahead," Singh told reporters over the weekend.

On the finalisation of the configuration for the project, he said from over 100 configurations it is down to a couple of them now.

However, Singh was quick to add that unless there is finality on the location, the company cannot go ahead as identifying the land is crucial, considering it needs around 15,000 acres.

"Barring this, we are really in advanced stage of moving ahead," he said and emphasised that he is very positive about the project.

A joint venture company called Ratnagiri Refinery has been set up, with IOC as the single largest domestic shareholder along with HPCL and BPCL which have marginal stakes, while Saudi Aramco has picked up 51 per cent along with Abu Dhabi National Oil Company.

Meanwhile, Singh also said of the 35,000 new petrol pumps announced by IOC last year, as many as 11,000 are operational now.

On whether IOC, which controls more than half of the fuel market in the country, will be interested in taking over the state-run BPCL which government is keen to exit, Singh said, "Let's see. But even the bid documents are not out yet." BEN ABMABM