Mittal, Total, GAIL Team Up With HPCL

Steel czar Lakshmi N Mittal, French oil giant Total and gas utility company GAIL India teamed up with HPCL for setting up a $6 billion refinery-cum-petrochemical complex at Visakhapatnam.The five-way partnership for the 15 million tonne a year refinery and one million tonne Olefins and Aromatics complex will also feature state explorer Oil India Ltd.

Total will take the lead in conducting the feasibility study for the refinery project while GAIL would take charge of the study of the petrochemical unit. Balakrishnan said the exact equity structure and project finances would be decided only after the feasibility studies are completed.GAIL chairman and managing director U D Choubey said petrochemical business for the company ranks second in the order of priority after gas.

Arcelor-Mittal executive vice president Sudhir Maheshwari said Mittals are keen on rapidly expanding in both oil and gas exploration as well as downstream refining and petrochemical business. About 2,500 acres of land near HPCL''s existing 7.5 million tonne a year refinery at Visakhapatnam has been acquired for the project.While the refinery would be built to process sour and heavy crudes, which are cheaper than low-sulphur sweet crude oil, the petrochemical plant may use the naphtha produced in the refinery as feedstock.