Kolkata

West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari has assured the Indian Oil Corporation of facilitating land for its long-pending plans to develop a petrochemical complex alongside its refinery in Haldia.

Noting that the expansion would require 175 acres of land, the chief minister on Monday said the Haldia Development Authority has already arranged 85 acres and the remaining could be facilitated through the Haldia Dock Complex of Syama Prasad Mookherjee Port.

Adhikari said he has taken up the matter with the port authorities to ensure that the land is made available to Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) for its proposed expansion.

An official said, "If this happens, then the IOC will send the project to the board for consideration."

The state-owned oil major said it was considering an expansion at Haldia, which could include a chemical downstream project. The OC has for years sought the 175-acre parcel adjoining its Haldia refinery to expand its operations and develop downstream petrochemical facilities.

In 2023, an IOC official had said the company wanted to develop a petrochemical complex contiguous to the Haldia refinery, arguing that a standalone refinery was not sustainable in terms of profitability and that it needed to be supplemented by petrochemicals.

The company had said it wanted to replicate at Haldia the model adopted at its Paradip refinery, where a large petrochemical ecosystem has been developed around the refinery.

The land requirement has been a longstanding constraint on expansion at Haldia..

In 2021, then Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan had written to the ministers of chemicals and fertilisers, and shipping, seeking their intervention to make available around 175 acres held by Hindustan Fertilisers Corporation Ltd.

IOC had also flagged the difficulty of expanding the refinery because it is bounded by the Hooghly river and railway lines, canals and roads, leaving the HFCL land on the eastern side as the key contiguous parcel available for expansion.

The Haldia refinery, commissioned in 1975 with an initial capacity of 2.5 million tonnes per annum, has since been expanded to nearly 9 million tonnes per annum and now produces fuels, lubricants and speciality products.

IOC's official profile says the refinery commissioned its second catalytic iso-dewaxing unit in 2024, producing Group III lubricant base stocks.

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The development comes as the West Bengal government is seeking to facilitate industrial projects by making land more readily available through mechanisms including direct purchase and land pooling.