HPCL plans to temporarily shut down its secondary units in Vizag

The Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL) has reportedly decided to temporarily shut down a few secondary units at its Vizag and Mumbai refineries in the current financial year. The Navratna company will apparently take the step to bring forth Euro-VI compliant fuel in the market from April 2020.

Speaking to the media, on Wednesday, the Chairman of HPCL, MK Surana, said that apart from the plans to shut down units which improve gasoline specifications, sealing a diesel hydro desulphuriser from early September to the end of October 2019 at the 166,000 barrels per day (BPD) HPCL refinery in Vizag is also on the cards. He further added that the organisation is also planning to shut a gasoline desulphuriser at its 150,000 BPD Mumbai refinery in the western state of Maharashtra for 15-20 days in December 2019.

Previously, a similar operation was carried out this year when a 70,000 BPD crude unit at the Mumbai refinery was shut down in April for 23 days. The refiner conveyed that the company has no further plans to shut crude units at Visakhapatnam and Mumbai refineries in 2019-20.

Euro-VI fuel was introduced in 2015 by the European Union directive with an objective to reduce the levels of exhaust emissions, both in petrol and diesel-based vehicles. While Delhi had switched over to Euro-VI fuel in April 2018, the rest of the country is gearing up to provide the cleaner fuel by April 2020.