Indian Oil Corp (IOC) has commissioned a hydrogen unit at Panipat, where its refinery capacity will be doubled to 120,000 barrels per day (bpd) by March, the state-run company said.

The new unit will produce 140,000 tonnes of hydrogen a year, India’s largest refiner said.
IOC said it would install its diesel hydrotreating unit by the end of this month, as planned, but the $940-million refinery expansion project would be complete by March instead of January.
“The Crude and Vacuum Distillation Units and the Delayed Coker unit will also be kick-started progressively to enable the entire capacity-doubling project to go online in the next three to four months,” it said.
The company is also building a $1.1-billion plant to produce paraxylene and purified terephthalic acid, scheduled to be completed early next year, and a naphtha cracker along with polymer units, which will be built in the year to March 2008.
IOC plans to build a new refinery and petrochemicals complex at Paradip in eastern India, but details of the project have not been finalised yet.
IOC aims to become one of India’s top petrochemicals firms, which will help it use surplus naphtha now being exported by Indian companies.
Naphtha has been steadily replaced by gas in Indian power plants and fertiliser units since last year, when the country started importing liquefied natural gas from Qatar.
A planned increase in refining capacity of 2.54 million bpd is expected to add to the country’s naphtha surplus.