Stage set for Modi’s visit to Odisha

Odisha Channel Bureau Bhubaneswar: The stage is set for the visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Odisha on Sunday to inaugurate the 15 MMTPA Paradip Refinery of IndianOil, a sunshine project for a sunshine future.Modi will also inagurate the National Institute of Science Education and Research (NISER) at Jatni near Bhubaneswar before going to Paradio to dedicate the refinery to the nation.The foundation stone for Paradip refinery was laid by the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in May 2000, and Modi is scheduled to inagurate the refienry which has been established at a cost of Rs.34,555 crore, the largest investment in a single project in India in recent years.Heavy security arrangements have been made by Odisha police as well as the Special Protection Group to make Modi’s visit incident-free.Secyrity has also been tightened at Puri where Modi is scheduled to visit Jagannath temple after inagurating NISER in Bhubaneswar and before going to Paradip.The Prime Minister will return to Visakhapatnam after inagurating the Paradip refinery and addressing a rally in the port town on Sunday afternoon.A host of other dignitaries, including Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, will share dias with Modi during the inaguration of the refinery at Paradip.Meanwhile, a poster war is going on between BJP and BJD across Odisha with both parties trying their best to take credit for the project and earn political mileage.Opposition Congress has blamed both parties claiming that their governments at the Centre and State had also contributed a lot for establishment of the Paradip refiney.According to an official release, IndianOil’s 11th Refinery at Paradip will help in meeting the burgeoning energy demands of the country.For better profitability, the refinery has been designed to process 100% high sulphur, including 40% heavy crude oil of low cost to produce various petroleum products like Petrol, diesel, kerosene, Aviation Turbine fuel, Propylene, Sulphur and Petroleum Coke.Paradip Refinery will also accelerate the economic and infrastructural development in and around the area, acting as a gateway to opportunities in Eastern India.The Refinery has already changed the skyline of the place, with tall columns, tanks and pipelines spread across.It will serve as a catalyst for energising the industrial and economic development of the entire region and the State in the long run.Presently, Paradip Refinery will produce Motor Spirit and High Speed Diesel of BS-IV quality and will switch over to BS-VI quality to comply with the Auto Fuel Policy of the Government of India.The refinery is also designed to produce Euro-V premium quality Motor Spirit and other green auto fuel variants for export to advanced countries.Propylene produced from the refinery shall be of polymer grade quality.The foundation of the Poly-Propylene Plant was laid by Shri Dharmendra Pradhan, Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Petroleum and Natural Gas on 16th November, 2014.Based on Refinery’s products, various Petrochemicals and downstream industries will come up and will bring in a new era of growth and prosperity.Finished petroleum products shall reach the east of India, north east and Andhra Pradesh and Telengana in the South.Paradip Refinery has a unique INDMAX Unit technology, which is indigenously been developed by IndianOil’s R&D Centre.The INDMAX Unit is designed to produce 44% LPG, the highest from such plants.The commissioning of INDMAX Unit at Paradip (4.17 Million Metric Tonnes Per Annum), marks a major milestone in the history of Indian refining.With this, IndianOil is now recognized globally, as a technology supplier.Implementation of INDMAX technology is IndianOil’s true tribute to the ‘Make in India’ initiative of Hon’ble Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi.The other first-time technological features like Flue Gas Desulphurisation facilities, Vapour Recovery system from jetty loading etc are the hallmark of Paradip Refinery that will ensure environment-friendly operation of the refinery, with minimum impact to surroundings.The State also witnessed flagging off the first consignment of products, comprising High Speed Diesel, Superior Kerosene and LPG from IndianOil’s Paradip Refinery in November, 2015.With the vision to earn further value-addition to Paradip Refinery, a 700 KTA capacity Polypropylene (PP) Plant, based on Propylene recovered from Cracked LPG generated from INDMAX Plant, is under implementation at an approved cost of Rs.3150 Crore and is scheduled for completion by 2017-18.The refinery also has plans to set-up an Ethylene Recovery Unit /Mono-Ethylene Glycol (MEG) at an estimated cost of Rs.3800 Crore.These units are expected to be completed by 2020-21.IndianOil is also evaluating the options of setting-up manufacturing facilities for Para-Xylene, PTA and synthetic ethanol at Paradip.Subject to techno-commercial viability, these facilities may be installed in the next five to seven years time.