Indian Oil to fully restart Paradip refinery by Saturday

Indian Oil Corporation Ltd, the country’s top refiner, will restart all units at its 300,000 barrels per day (bpd) Paradip refinery in Odisha by Saturday, a government official said.

The refinery’s maintenance shutdown has been extended by a few days due to shortage of laborers amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Out of about 1,400 workers and supervisors mobilized for shutdown jobs from outside, less than 400 are there,” said Sangram Keshari Mohapatra, the top bureaucrat in the district of Jagatsinghpur, where the refinery is located.

He said only two of the nine major units that had undergone shutdown have started.

“Remaining seven are being started in sequence as all are connected and start up will complete over the next two days,” Mohapatra told Reuters.

Separately, an IOC official said some secondary units have resumed operations using feedstock available with the plant, while others including the crude unit will start by Saturday.

The company did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.