Paradip, July 27: Union minister for petroleum and natural gas Veerapa Moily today inaugurated the main control room of Indian Oil’s Paradip refinery project. This comes ahead of the commissioning of the Rs 30,000-crore project.

Moily’s visit has provided a much-needed boost to the project since people concerned were doubting its timely commissioning. After several hiccups in the recent past, the progress of the project is now satisfactory following an amicable settlement of labour unrest issues.

About 20 per cent of project work has been completed. The authorities plan to finish work and have it commissioned by September.

The Union minister, flanked by Srikant Jena, minister of state (independent charge), ministry of chemicals and fertilisers, statistics and programme implementation, visited the atmospheric vacuum distillation unit, delayed coking unit and crude and product tankage area of the Paradip refinery project.

“The country is proud of Indian Oil and commissioning of the Paradip refinery will further enhance the oil company’s prestige. The best talents have been deployed in the execution of this project and we need to work with a missionary zeal to complete the project within the stipulated timeframe. Both the state and central governments are laying emphasis to extend the support that the project needs,” said Moily.

“The refinery will take the Indian Oil group’s refining capacity to over 80.0 million metric tonne per annum and help meet the growing energy needs of the country,” Indian Oil chairman R.S. Butola said.

The refinery is conceived to process 100 per cent high sulphur, including 40 per cent heavy cheaper crude, for better profitability.

This refinery will meet the spiralling domestic demand for LPG, petrol, diesel, ATF and other petroleum products in eastern India and beyond.