Indian Oil Corporation Limited has recently entered into an MoU with Numaligarh Refinery Limited (NRL) and Paradip Port Trust (PPT) in a glittering ceremony at Bhubaneswar in presence of Mr. Nitin Gadkari, Honourable Minister for Road Transport, Highways & Shipping, Mr. Dharmendra Pradhan, Honourable Minister of State (I/C) for Petroleum and Natural Gas, Dr. Himanta Biswa Sarma, Finance Minister, Govt. of Assam, Mr. Chandra Mohan Patowary, Commerce & Industry Minister, Govt. of Assam, Mr. Anish Aggarwal Director (Pipelines), Chairman Paradip Port Trust (PPT), MD Numaligarh Refinery Ltd .
Numaligarh Refinery Limited has planned to expand the refining capacity of its refinery from 3 MMTPA to 9 MMTPA. Under the expansion plan, a crude oil pipeline from Paradip Port in Odisha to Numaligarh in Assam is proposed.
Indian Oil is having a state of the art crude oil unloading system through Single Point Mooring System at Paradip Port to meet crude oil requirements of its refineries at Paradip, Haldia, Barauini and Bongaigaon. NRL management has expressed its interest to explore the possibility of utilizing the existing SPM System of IOCL for import of crude oil for the proposed expansion of its refinery at Numaligarh.
Speaking on the occasion, Mr Gadkari said the Union government has planned to make Paradip as the growth engine not only for the development of Odisha, but also for the entire North Eastern states. He said around Rs 7,000 Cr would be invested in the project – out of which Rs 1,000 Cr would be invested in Paradip. Similarly huge Investment would also be made in Assam.