Saudi Aramco is in talks to buy a stake in a planned refinery expected to be built on India’s west coast that would be the country’s biggest refinery and would cost around $30 billion, Indian Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said on Thursday.
State-run companies Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), Bharat Petroleum Corporation (BPCL), and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation (HPCL) are planning to build the refinery, in which IOC would have 50 percent and BPCL and HPCL would hold 25 percent each.
“Saudi Aramco and Abu Dhabi National Oil Co (ADNOC) are talking to us for investments in the Indian oil sector,” Pradhan said at an energy event in India today, as quoted by local media.
Speaking to reporters later, the minister noted that Aramco was interested in buying a stake in the future refinery, while ADNOC was interested in investing in petrochemical projects.
“Aramco is talking of a stake in the refinery,” Pradhan told Indian media, referring to the Saudi plans, but he did not specify how big a stake the Saudi company has been negotiating for. Related: Oil Erases Gains After Inventory Head-Fake
The Indian oil minister also retweeted today a bullet-point summary of his speech at the event, which says that India is “in talks with Saudi Aramco, Abu Dhabi NOC, BP for investments” and “global players keen to partner to build big refinery in west coast”.
The Indian companies that plan the construction of the refinery have identified land on the Maharashtra coast for the venture.
In the middle of last year, Sanjiv Singh, Director (Refineries) at IOC, told Indian news outlet PTI that the refinery was expected to cost $30 billion.
India’s oil demand is expected to steadily grow and break new records in the future.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) has said in an outlook on India that refining capacity additions over the last decade had outpaced domestic demand growth and turned the country into a net exporter of refined products. Over the period to 2040, a further 3.4 million bpd of refinery capacity expansion and very high utilization rates are expected to drive refinery runs up by 3.1 million bpd to reach 7.6 million bpd by 2040.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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