MRPL chief hopes solution for Iranian crude oil crisis
Mangalore Refineries and Petrochemicals Limited (MRPL) Managing Director P P Upadhya said that the import of Iranian crude oil has now reduced to five million tonnes from 7.3 million tonnes per annum. He was addressing the gathering during a talk on ‘MRPL and its future projects’ organised by Institute of Engineers in Mangalore on Tuesday.
“We were depending on Iranian crude oil for more than 60 per cent of crude oil requirements. But after the US’s sanctions over Iran, the import has been reduced drastically. In the month of July, no crude oil was imported from Iran,” he said and added that the MRPL is depending on other West Asian countries, and hoped that the sanctions over Iran would ease soon.
MRPL started buying crude oil from the Islamic Republic in 1996. However, the import was reduced after the Obama government imposed fresh sanctions in 2011.
Loss disappointing
P P Upadhya said that the Rs 1,521 crore loss MRPL suffered during the first quarter of 2012-13 is disappointing. “Over the years, we had achieved significant growth. But the fluctuation of crude oil price in the international market has affected the balance sheet significantly, and that’s how we are at the losing end after 10 years,” he said.
Stressing on the CSR activities of the MRPL, he said that the company is giving preference to the health and sanitation, SC/ST improvement, education and women empowerment. He said that the MRPL had given Rs five crore to the Chief Minister’s contingency fund for building houses for the victims of floods in North Karnataka last year.
Expansion project
M Venkatesh, Group General Manager of MRPL said that the MRPL is planning to expand the capacity to 15MMTPA. The other plans include processing cheaper crude, production of petrochemical feed stocks; maximise distillate yield and upgrading entire HSD in to BS III/IV grade.
He said that the MRPL is also drawing plans to facilitate investment in the region and to develop downstream industries and SEZ with ONGC as anchor tenant. Adding to that, he said that water and land resources are the main challenges before the MRPL to expand. Managing Director P P Upadhya was felicitated by the Institute of Engineers on the occasion.
