First unit of Paradip Refinery to be ready by December: IOC

"We are confident of completing the work on the first unit of the Paradip refinery by the end of December and the remaining four units in the next four months one unit each month," said IOC Chairman RS Butola, adding the actual commissioning is likely to be in late March or early April.

This is the 10th refinery project by the nation's largest oil refining company and is coming up on a 3,000-acre plot at Jagatsinghpur in coastal Odisha at a cost of Rs 30,000 crore.

The project was announced in March 2006, with an initial installed refining capacity of 9 million tonnes per annum and includes a pipeline from the refinery to Ranchi.

Butola was talking to journalists on the sidelines of the Oberoi Lecture held last evening here, delivered by Iraqi deputy prime minister for energy Hussain Ibrahim Saleh al-Shahristani, and organised by the Oberoi hotel group and the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

Butola said construction is almost over with 95 per cent of the work already completed.

The 15-million tonne Paradip project will take Indian Oil's refining capacity to over 80 million tonnes per annum and will primarily cater to the Eastern market.

Last month-end, Oil Minister Veerappa Moily had inaugurated the main control room of the refinery project.