The Bharat Oman Refineries (BORL) Bina refinery located in Madhya Pradesh, India has been operational since June 2011.

BORL, a subsidiary of India’s state-owned Bharat Petroleum Corporation (BPCL), is the operator of the refinery.

BORL was originally incorporated as a 50:50 joint-venture between BPCL and Oman’s national petroleum investment company OQ (formerly Oman Oil Company).

BPCL increased its stake in the BORL joint venture to 63.38% through conversion of share warrants into equity shares in March 2020, while the Government of Madhya Pradesh holds compulsory convertible warrants in the company.

Project Gallery

BPCL further agreed to buy the remaining 36.62% stake in BORL from OQ in March 2021.

The crude processing capacity of the refinery was increased from 6 million tonnes a year (Mtpa) to 7.8Mtpa following the completion of a debottlenecking project carried out in October-December 2018. The Nelson Complexity Index of the refinery is 11.3.

Location and refinery details

The BORL refinery is located at Bina, in the Sagar district of Madhya Pradesh, India. The refinery site lies approximately 180km northeast of Bhopal, the capital city of Madhya Pradesh.

The Bharat Oman Refineries assets include a single point mooring system and a crude oil terminal at Vadinar, Gujarat, as well as a 935km-long, 24in-diameter crude oil pipeline from Vadinar to the Bina refinery site.

The crude intake of the refinery was 7.91Mt in the year ending March 2020, while the capacity utilisation and distillate yields were 101% and 83.8% respectively. The refinery processes mainly Arab Mix, Basrah Light, and Kuwait crude.

The refinery sold 7.24Mt of petroleum products in the year ending March 2020, with petrol and high-speed diesel accounting for 1.28Mt and 4.1Mt respectively.

The refinery supplies the fuel products to the north and central markets of India. A 259km-long pipeline from the Bina refinery to Kota, Rajasthan, commissioned in 2011, is used for the transportation of petroleum products.

Processing infrastructure

The various process modules at the BORL Bina refinery include a crude distillation/ vacuum distillation unit of 7.8Mtpa capacity, a 2.63Mtpa full conversion hydrocracker unit, a 2.37Mtpa diesel hydrotreater unit, a 1.82Mtpa delayed coker unit, a 98,000tpa hydrogen unit, a 1.55Mtpa naphtha hydrotreater unit, a 0.84Mtpa continuous catalytic reforming unit, a 0.64Mtpa isomerisation unit, and a sulphur recovery unit.

The refinery products include petrol, diesel, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), superior kerosene oil (SKO), aviation turbine fuel, naphtha, sulphur, and petcoke.

Separately, a 600Ktpa Kero Hydro Desulphurisation (KHDS) project is being currently executed at the refinery to reduce the sulphur content in kerosene which is expected to be completed in 2021.

A 355km-long multi-product petroleum pipeline is also being constructed to connect the Bina refinery to the Panki suburb in Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, which is scheduled for commissioning by the end of 2021.

BORL Bina refinery debottlenecking project

The Bina refinery debottlenecking project involved the installation of 93 new equipment as well as modifications to nearly 100 existing equipment.

The new third Train C was added to the sulphur recovery unit, while new pre-reformers, parallel reformer, and LT shift reactor were installed in the hydrogen generation unit as part of the project.

In the vacuum distillation unit, the existing ejector system was replaced by a liquid ring vacuum pump system. In the motor spirit block, the continuous catalyst regenerator section saw the addition of two new heaters, while a naphtha splitter re-boiler heater was installed in the naphtha hydro-treater section.

A third coke drum, a new wet gas compressor, and a blown-down ring compressor were also installed in the delayed coker unit as part of the project.

A new modular Penex unit, a cryogenic nitrogen plant, a two-stage Desalter system in CDU/VDU unit were commissioned as part of the refinery debottlenecking project.

The project also witnessed the addition of eight new tanks including one crude tank and seven intermediate tanks at the refinery, apart from two crude tanks at the crude oil terminal in Vadinar, Gujarat.

Recently awarded contracts

Engineers India bagged the project management consultancy (PMC) services contract for the engineering, procurement, and construction management for the BORL Bina debottlenecking project.

Engineers India was also contracted for the PMC services for the installation of the Kero Hydro Desulphurisation (KHDS) unit at the Bina refinery.