The 3.00 MMTPA Delayed Coker Unit (DCU) , a secondary processing facility of the Phase-III Upgradation and Expansion Project of MRPL (Mangalore Refinery & Petrochemicals Ltd, a subsidiary of ONGC) went onstream today.

The Delayed Coker Unit will convert the Short residue(bottoms) which is a low value product into high value products viz Gasoil, Naphtha , LPG. The balance 30% of the product i.e the Pet-coke from this unit that is widely used in the Cement Industry will be marketed by MRPL . The demand for Pet-coke is growing at a rate of 8.5 CAGR in India.

The Delayed Coker unit has been built with an investment of about Rs 1170 Crore with technology supplied by Lummus Technology and built by Toyo Engineers Ltd and Punj Lloyd.

With the commissioning of Delayed Coker unit, the Fuel Oil production from the Refinery will come down drastically and will increase the distillate yield. This is expected to improve the top line and bottom line of the company significantly adding value to its shareholders.

There was some delay in the commissioning of the unit due to the non availability of steam and power from the Power plant of Phase III, MRPL, on a sustained basis.

The Crude Unit, Diesel Hydrotreater and Hydrogen units of MRPL’s Phase III Project with an outlay of ` 12,160 Cr have been already under operation for the past 1 1/2 to 2 years. In August 2013 SPM was made operational and the first VLCC carrier was received on 18th March 2014. The Sulphur Recovery unit and Coker Gasoil Treater units of Phase-III will be commissioned shortly . The pre-commissioning activities of the Petro Fluidized Catalytic Cracking Unit are in full swing and expected to go on stream by the end of this month .The Polypropylene Unit is 95% mechanically completed and will be commissioned in July-14. By the end of H1 14-15 MRPL will be realizing revenues from all the units in Phase-3 project and Polypropylene unit.