Suman Kumar (ED, IOCL) | Interview | Bihar Business Connect 2024

We fuel the national economy, and that is what we claim — being the largest supplier of fuels, hydrocarbon fuels, I would say, in the country. And to that extent, as the demand grows, there is a need for us to expand our existing businesses, existing installations, and also create new facilities which go in tune with the development and the growth that is taking place in the country. In this case, in case of Barauni, in fact, it happened to be one of the very first refineries created in India, but it was a small unit at that point of time — 3 million tons, which we subsequently expanded to 6 million tons sometime in between. But now we are expanding it to 9 million tons, so an additional 3 million tons of refining capacity is getting created here. And not just this, alongside this, we are also creating a 200 KTA — that is 2 lakh tons — of polypropylene capacity. Now today we happen to be a large player in the petrochemical business in the country, and we are selling close to 3.2 million tons today. But then our expansion plans are huge going forward — by 2030 we would be creating facilities which are the largest maybe in the country, and to that extent this polypropylene capacity is going to contribute to that kit. And not just this, it will also work as a catalyst to further growth of the downstream industry in the hydrocarbon sector.

Typically, we are spending close to 15,500 crores in this expansion that is occurring in Barauni.

We are — maybe next year sometime we would be reaching an advanced stage of implementation. That is what the indications are as of now.

City gas distribution — actually, this is an exercise which substitutes our existing business, so it replaces our existing business. So it is quite natural for us to get into this business and put our money into it, which kind of hedges us against any business loss. And to that extent, we are implementing this city gas distribution network in 27 districts in Bihar, and close to 5,600 crores is the kind of investment getting into this. But then this is an initial estimate, let me say this to you. Going forward, as we progress in this business and as this business starts giving us returns, it'll invite much more investment into it. A figure cannot be said as of now, but then we have already anchored in these 27 districts and we would be expanding it as the business expands, as the customers' needs also grow.

We have been leading — Indian Oil has been leading the SATAT initiative of the Government of India, and we have one of the largest portfolios of developers who would be going forward developing CBG plants all across the country. And we have very large plans in this. But specific to Bihar, we are planning to set up three to four CBG plants. Our model in this is to create demonstration centers which can subsequently be replicated by other entrepreneurs, and to that extent three or four we consider to be adequate to kind of fuel that growth in Bihar.

Bihar always excites. See, this is the time when probably you're looking at developments happening here, and not just that — the speed is tremendous, speed is simply mind-boggling. We may not have imagined in our own days while we were here as to Bihar would grow at this speed. But all my wishes are there, and whatever it could take me to be a part of this leap, I would say my privilege.

Thank you very much. Thanks a lot. Thank you, Edward.