Bharat Petroleum Corporation (BPCL) plans to increase refining capacity to over 45 million tonnes (mt) by 2015 — by when it hopes to have a firm foothold in new areas like petrochemicals, gas and power. The company is also aggressively developing its exploration and production blocks overseas.
All this will entail huge investments, in infrastructure such as pipelines, tankages, terminals and bottling plants, in the next five to ten years and will require at least Rs 50,000 crore. Currently, BPCL's refining capacity is 30.5 mt, of which the Mumbai refinery is the largest with 12 mt, followed by Kochi with 9.5 mt, Bina (Madhya Pradesh) 6 mt and Numaligarh in Assam with 3 mt.
Mozambique could end up being an important link to India in foray into gas business. BPCL has discovered gas in the country and is looking at bringing it here. Exploration and production has become one of the big growth drivers at BPCL, and it is already working on 26 blocks. It estimates Rs 8,000 crore will be spent in the next five years for developing these blocks across Brazil, Mozambique, Australia and India.
