Haldia Refinery is an

oil refinery An oil refinery or petroleum refinery is an industrial processes, industrial process Factory, plant where petroleum (crude oil) is transformed and refining, refined into products such as gasoline (petrol), diesel fuel, Bitumen, asphalt base, ...

operated by

Indian Oil Corporation Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL or IOC), trading as IndianOil, is an Indian multinational oil and gas company under the ownership of the Government of India and administrative control of the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas. It is ...

, located in

Haldia Haldia () is an industrial port city in Purba Medinipur district in the Indian state of West Bengal. It has a major river port and industrial belt located approximately southwest of Kolkata near the mouth of the Hooghly River, one of the d ...

city in the state of

West Bengal West Bengal (; Bengali language, Bengali: , , abbr. WB) is a States and union territories of India, state in the East India, eastern portion of India. It is situated along the Bay of Bengal, along with a population of over 91 million inhabi ...

. This refinery has a capacity of 8 million

tonne The tonne ( or ; symbol: t) is a unit of mass equal to 1,000 kilograms. It is a non-SI unit accepted for use with SI. It is also referred to as a metric ton in the United States to distinguish it from the non-metric units of the s ...

s per year. This refinery was commissioned in 1975 and is situated 136 km from

Kolkata Kolkata, also known as Calcutta ( its official name until 2001), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of West Bengal. It lies on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River, west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary ...

, at the junction of Haldi and

Hooghly River The Hooghly River (, also spelled ''Hoogli'' or ''Hugli'') is the westernmost distributary of the Ganges, situated in West Bengal, India. It is known in its upper reaches as the Bhagirathi. The Bhagirathi splits off from the main branch of the G ...

. This refinery can produce various fuel products like LPG,

Naphtha Naphtha (, recorded as less common or nonstandard in all dictionaries: ) is a flammable liquid hydrocarbon mixture. Generally, it is a fraction of crude oil, but it can also be produced from natural-gas condensates, petroleum distillates, and ...

Petrol Gasoline (North American English) or petrol ( Commonwealth English) is a petrochemical product characterized as a transparent, yellowish, and flammable liquid normally used as a fuel for spark-ignited internal combustion engines. When formul ...

, Mineral Turpentine Oil, Superior Kerosene,

Aviation Turbine Fuel Jet fuel or aviation turbine fuel (ATF, also abbreviated avtur) is a type of aviation fuel designed for use in aircraft powered by gas-turbine engines. It is colorless to straw-colored in appearance. The most commonly used fuels for commercial ...

, High Speed Diesel, Jute Batching Oil.

History

Two sectors were commissioned in January 1975 for processing 2.5 MMTPA of

Middle East The Middle East (term originally coined in English language) is a geopolitical region encompassing the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and Iraq. The term came into widespread usage by the United Kingdom and western Eur ...

crude - one for producing fuel products and the other for Lube base stocks. The fuel sector was built with French collaboration and the Lube sector with Romanian collaboration. The refining capacity of the Refinery was increased to 2.75 million tonnes per year in 1989 through debottlenecking measures.

Accident

On December 21, 2021, a

flash fire A flash fire is a sudden, intense fire caused by ignition of a mixture of air and a dispersed flammable substance such as a solid (including dust), flammable or combustible liquid (such as an aerosol or fine mist), or a flammable gas. It is charac ...

took place at the Motor Spirit Quality unit of the refinery, which was under maintenance. Sparks from a

welding Welding is a fabrication (metal), fabrication process that joins materials, usually metals or thermoplastics, primarily by using high temperature to melting, melt the parts together and allow them to cool, causing Fusion welding, fusion. Co ...

operation ignited a flammable material, leading to an explosion and fire, which resulted in the deaths of 3 workers and injuring 44 others.

References

External links

Haldia Refinery

IndianOil Refining
{{Oil refineries in India Oil refineries in India Indian Oil Corporation Energy in West Bengal Haldia Indian Oil Corporation buildings and structures 1975 establishments in West Bengal Energy infrastructure completed in 1975 20th-century architecture in India