The HPCL Mumbai refinery is one of the most complex

refineries A refinery is a production facility composed of a group of chemical engineering unit processes and unit operations refining certain materials or converting raw material into products of value. Types of refineries Different types of refineries ar ...

in the country, is constructed on an area of 321 acres. This versatile refinery which is the first of India's modern refineries, symbolizes the country's industrial strength and progress in the oil industry. Mumbai Refinery has grown over the years as the main hub of petroleum products. The refinery has reached to present level through several upgradation and restructuring processes.

History

The Mumbai Refinery was commissioned by

Esso Esso () is a trading name for ExxonMobil. Originally, the name was primarily used by its predecessor Standard Oil of New Jersey after the breakup of the original Standard Oil company in 1911. The company adopted the name "Esso" (the phonetic p ...

Standard in 1954, with an installed capacity of 1.25 million

tonne The tonne ( or ; symbol: t) is a unit of mass equal to 1000 kilograms. It is a non-SI unit accepted for use with SI. It is also referred to as a metric ton to distinguish it from the non-metric units of the short ton ( United State ...

s per year. The lube refinery, Lube India Ltd, was commissioned in 1969 with a capacity of 165 million tonnes per year of Lube Oil Base Stock (LOBS) production. Crude processing capacity increased to 3.5 million tonnes per year during 1969. In 1974, the

Government of India The Government of India (ISO: ; often abbreviated as GoI), known as the Union Government or Central Government but often simply as the Centre, is the national government of the Republic of India, a federal democracy located in South Asia, c ...

took over Esso and Lube India by the Esso (Acquisition of Undertakings in India) Act 1974 and formed HPCL. Expansion of the fuels block was carried out by installing new 2 million tonnes per year crude units in 1985. A second expansion of Lube Refinery took place to increase the capacity of the refinery to 335 million tonnes per year, so far the largest in

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

. The installed capacity of the refinery was later enhanced to 6.5 million tonnes per year. The current installed capacity of the refinery is 9.5 million tonnes per year

References

Buildings and structures in Mumbai Oil refineries in India 1954 establishments in Bombay State Economy of Mumbai Energy in Maharashtra Hindustan Petroleum Hindustan Petroleum buildings and structures {{Petroleum-stub