Indian Oil Corp will expand the capacity of its Panipat refinery to 15 million tonnes a year by end 2009 and will complete a naphtha cracker complex by September next year.

The company is investing Rs 806 crore in expanding the refining capacity that will also make the unit capable of producing Euro-III and Euro IV petrol and diesel.

Last year, the company had invested Rs 4,165 crore in doubling the Panipat refinery capacity to 12 million tonnes.

IndianOil, the largest company in India in terms of sales and profit, intends to establish its first styrene butadiene rubber (SBR) facility.
This plant, located at Panipat in the north of India and to be built at an investment price of Rs 7.61 billion (£90.55 million), will be 48% owned by IndianOil. The company plans to offer two further investors respective shares of 32% and 20% in the 120,000 tonne per annum emulsion SBR project.

In terms of cost, IndianOil will contribute Rs 1.82 billion (£21.66 million) towards the SBR project, and spend a further Rs 3.07 billion (£36.53 million) on the 130,000 tonne per annum butadiene extraction unit. Four grades of emulsion SBR (two oil extended and two non-oil grades) will be produced in the plant. Due to the fact that India imports its entire SBR requirement, the company foresees no difficulty finding a market for the grades.

The SBR will reportedly be produced by the co-polymerisation of butadiene and styrene in a weight ratio of 3:1 in the presence of catalysts, chemicals and stabilisers. While the butadiene feedstock (about 72,000 tonne per annum) will come from the Panipat refinery through an extraction unit, the other feed stock, styrene (about 22,000 tonne per annum), will be imported.