HPCL on its mission to tackle post oil price-hike situation

Mumbai, Aug 1 (UNI) Hindustan Petro-Chemicals Limited, (HPCL) is currently on a mission to tackle the volatile post oil price-hike situation in the country, the companies CMD said here today.

Speaking to UNI on the sidelines of a function, the CMD of HPCL, MB Lal, said ''We are trying to tackle the problem in several ways possible''. First of all we are trying to see how to keep a tab on the petrochemical based products being produced by us so that the burden on the consumers is not increased, and secondly, we want to make transportation and other such activities more cost efficient, he informed.

Commenting on oil bonds, which the central government has proposed, as a measure to tackle the post oil price-hike scenario, Mr Lal said that it has helped to tide over the problem to a certain extent only. Still it is not sufficient as the difference between the oil price as fixed by the government and the cost being incurred by the oil companies to supply the same to the consumer was too acute, and the oil bonds have been able to bridge the gap between the cost of production and market rates of oil by a small fraction of one-third only, he lamented and hoped that the problem would be solved by the complete implementation of Rangarajan committee recommendation.

The gyst of the concerned report is to make oil prices in the country at par with the internationally prevailing prices.

Talking about the expansion plans of his company, Mr Lal said that while the process of expansion of the Vizag refinery, which envisages to double its storing capacity within next couple of years, was already under progress, while the work was on a feverish pace for the proposed construction of the Bhatinda refinery in Punjab. He informed that the forthcoming Bhatinda refinery project was likely to get ready by the year 2010. He stressed that despite the current scenario, HPCL refineries continue to be a profitable sector.

All the four refineries owned by HPCL were running at the rate of 113 per cent of their capacities currently, he added.

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