Kochi Refinery Limited (KRL) is a crude oil

refinery A refinery is a production facility composed of a group of chemical engineering unit processes and unit operations refining certain materials or converting raw material into products of value. Types of refineries Different types of refineries ...

in the city of

Kochi Kochi ( , ), List of renamed Indian cities and states#Kerala, formerly known as Cochin ( ), is a major port city along the Malabar Coast of India bordering the Laccadive Sea. It is part of the Ernakulam district, district of Ernakulam in the ...

Kerala Kerala ( , ) is a States and union territories of India, state on the Malabar Coast of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, following the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, by combining Malayalam-speaking regions of the erstwhile ...

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. It is the largest

public sector The public sector, also called the state sector, is the part of the economy composed of both public services and public enterprises. Public sectors include the public goods and governmental services such as the military, law enforcement, pu ...

refinery in India with a production capacity of 15.5 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. Formerly known as Cochin Refineries Limited and later renamed as Kochi Refineries Limited, it was acquired by Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited in the year 2006. The refinery is situated at Ambalamugal, around 12 km (7.5 mi) east of the city centre.

History

Kochi Refinery started when

Government of India The Government of India (ISO 15919, ISO: Bhārata Sarakāra, legally the Union Government or Union of India or the Central Government) is the national authority of the Republic of India, located in South Asia, consisting of States and union t ...

, Phillips Petroleum Company of USA and Duncan Brothers & Company Limited of

Calcutta Kolkata, also known as Calcutta (List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, its official name until 2001), is the capital and largest city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal. It lies on the eastern ba ...

signed an agreement for the construction of a petroleum refinery in

south India South India, also known as Southern India or Peninsular India, is the southern part of the Deccan Peninsula in India encompassing the states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Telangana as well as the union territories of ...

, in

. The company was formally registered, as ''Cochin Refineries Ltd'' (CRL), on 6 September 1963 at

. Phillips Petroleum International Corporation was the prime contractors for the construction of the refinery. Construction work started in March 1964 and the first unit came on stream just after 29 months in September 1966. The

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Ms.

Indira Gandhi Indira Priyadarshini Gandhi (Given name, ''née'' Nehru; 19 November 1917 – 31 October 1984) was an Indian politician and stateswoman who served as the Prime Minister of India, prime minister of India from 1966 to 1977 and again from 1980 un ...

inaugurated it on 23 September 1966. In 2006, Kochi Refinery was acquired by the Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited.

Awards

* Certificate of Excellence for outstanding achievement in pollution control by Kerala State Pollution Control Board. * 'Green Manufacturing Excellence Award 2014' by M/s Frost & Sullivan for the year 2014.Kochi Refinery, Accolades
/ref> * Safety Award 2013 for the meritorious performance in the field of Safety, in Category-A among very large industries, from Factories & Boilers Department- Govt. of Kerala.

Capacity

The refinery had an original design capacity of 2.5 million

s per year which was increased to 3.3 million tonnes per year in 1973. Production of

liquefied petroleum gas Liquefied petroleum gas, also referred to as liquid petroleum gas (LPG or LP gas), is a fuel gas which contains a flammable mixture of hydrocarbon gases, specifically propane, Butane, ''n''-butane and isobutane. It can also contain some ...

(LPG) and aviation turbine fuel (ATF) commenced after this expansion. Refining capacity was further enhanced to 4.5 million tonnes per year in November 1984 when a fluidized catalytic cracking unit (FCCU) of 1 million tonnes per year capacity was added. In Dec 1994, refining capacity was increased to 7.5 million tonnes per year along with revamp of FCCU to 1.4 million tonnes per year. A fuel gas de-sulphurisation unit was installed as part of this project to minimise sulphur dioxide emission. CRL entered into petrochemical sector in 1989 when aromatic production facilities with a design capacity of 87,200 tonnes per year of benzene and 12,000 tons per annum of toluene was commissioned. In the year 2000, a 2 million tonnes per year Diesel Hydro De-sulphurisation (DHDS) plant was added to reduce the sulphur content in diesel. In August 2010, the refining capacity was further increased to 9.5 million tonnes per year. A captive power plant of 26.3 MW was commissioned in 1991. An additional captive power plant of 17.8 MW was commissioned in 1998 thus making the refinery self-sufficient in power. An LPG bottling plant of capacity 44,000 tonnes per year was commissioned in 2003. A

Bitumen Bitumen ( , ) is an immensely viscosity, viscous constituent of petroleum. Depending on its exact composition, it can be a sticky, black liquid or an apparently solid mass that behaves as a liquid over very large time scales. In American Engl ...

Emulsion plant of 10000 tonnes per year capacity has also been commissioned in 2004. A Biturox Bitumen Oxidation Unit of 378,000 tonnes per year capacity was successfully commissioned and started-up in 2008.

Merger with BPCL

Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL) acquired the Government of India's shares in KRL in March 2001. Consequent to the merger Order dated 18 August 2006 issued by Ministry of Company Affairs, the refinery has been amalgamated with Bharat Petroleum Corporation, henceforth to be known as BPCL-Kochi Refinery.

Competency

Today Kochi Refinery is a frontline entity as the unit of the

Fortune 500 The ''Fortune'' 500 is an annual list compiled and published by ''Fortune (magazine), Fortune'' magazine that ranks 500 of the largest United States Joint-stock company#Closely held corporations and publicly traded corporations, corporations by ...

company, BPCL. With a turnover of around US$2500 million, the refinery aims to strengthen its presence in refining and marketing of petroleum products and further grow into the energy and petrochemical sectors. Kochi Refinery is engaged in

Refining Refining is the process of purification of a (1) substance or a (2) form. The term is usually used of a natural resource that is almost in a usable form, but which is more useful in its pure form. For instance, most types of natural petroleum w ...

and marketing of petroleum products. Beginning with a capacity of (bpd), today the Refinery has a refining capacity of . The Company entered the petrochemical sector with

benzene Benzene is an Organic compound, organic chemical compound with the Chemical formula#Molecular formula, molecular formula C6H6. The benzene molecule is composed of six carbon atoms joined in a planar hexagonal Ring (chemistry), ring with one hyd ...

and

toluene Toluene (), also known as toluol (), is a substituted aromatic hydrocarbon with the chemical formula , often abbreviated as , where Ph stands for the phenyl group. It is a colorless, water Water is an inorganic compound with the c ...

in 1989. Kochi Refinery produces all fuel based refinery products viz

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 ...

, diesel,

kerosene Kerosene, or paraffin, is a combustibility, combustible hydrocarbon liquid which is derived from petroleum. It is widely used as a fuel in Aviation fuel, aviation as well as households. Its name derives from the Greek (''kērós'') meaning " ...

, aviation turbine fuel, gas oil, fuel oil, and

bitumen Bitumen ( , ) is an immensely viscosity, viscous constituent of petroleum. Depending on its exact composition, it can be a sticky, black liquid or an apparently solid mass that behaves as a liquid over very large time scales. In American Engl ...

. The foray into direct marketing began since 1993 through marketing its aromatic products: benzene and toluene. The company entered the International Petroleum business stream when its first parcel of Fuel Oil was exported in January 2001. Since then the company has exported around 100 parcels. In the last financial year the refinery exported products worth over US$280 million.

Speciality Products

Kochi Refinery makes Speciality products for domestic markets Viz. Benzene, Toluene, White Spirit, Poly Iso Butene & Sulphur. Kochi Refinery offers supplies of any grade Fuel Oil (both 180 cst and 380 cst) and Low Aromatic Naphthene (High Paraffinic) to the international market. Kochi Refinery also produces speciality grade bitumen products like Natural Rubber Modified Bitumen, Bitumen Emulsion etc. The Fuel Oil has been bench marked in the Singapore and Dubai Fuel Oil markets. Currently Kochi Refinery is known as BPCL Kochi Refinery (BPCL KR). KR had undergone a capacity expansion which made it a 15.5 million tonnes per year refinery. This project called Integrated Refinery Expansion Project will also mark KR's foray into petrochemical business. It is a 20,000 crores rupees project.

SPM

An offshore

crude oil Petroleum, also known as crude oil or simply oil, is a naturally occurring, yellowish-black liquid chemical mixture found in geological formations, consisting mainly of hydrocarbons. The term ''petroleum'' refers both to naturally occurring u ...

receipt facility consisting of an offshore single point mooring (SPM) facility and an associated shore tank farm (situated in Vypin).BharatPetroleum.com Kochi Refinery Projects.
/ref> This was commissioned in December 2007. The refinery is equipped to receive crude oil in Very Large Crude Carriers (VLCCs).

References

External links

Homepage of Bharat Petroleum Corporation / Kochi Refinery Overview
{{Kochi (India) topics Oil refineries in India Companies based in Kochi Energy in Kerala Non-renewable resource companies established in 1963 1963 establishments in Kerala Bharat Petroleum buildings and structures