India’s Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd has pushed back the completion of a billion-dollar expansion at its southeastern Vizag refinery to at least October-November due to a labor shortage and the onset of monsoon. The state-run refiner had initially planned to complete the 209.28 billion rupee (USD2.77 billion) expansions, which will nearly double the capacity of its coastal plant to 300,000 barrels per day (bpd), in July. Many workers have returned to their hometowns due to the nationwide lockdowns to curb the spread of coronavirus, while the onset of monsoon has made it difficult to carry out construction work. “Because of the lockdown we could not carry out the planned pre-monsoon work. We lost that window,” the source said, asking not to be named due to sensitivity of the issue. “We have not yet done our assessment but it seems completion of the project would be delayed to at least October-November.” The project also involves the revamp of units including a 30% increase in capacity of naphtha hydrotreater to 1.5 million tpy and diesel hydrotreater to 2.86 million tpy, while the capacity of continuous catalytic cracker will be raised to 1.039 million tpy.
