India: Amerind Petroleum to Reassemble Sunoco Refinery in India
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Wednesday, 30 November 2011 |
Amerind Petroleum has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Government to reassemble a 62-year-old refinery that was shut down in 2009. The facility, currently located in New Jersey in the United States, will reopen in Visakhapatnam at a cost of R11,196 crore and form a key part of the proposed petroleum, chemicals and petro- chemical investment region ( PCPIR) between Visakhapatnam and Kakinada.
In the first phase of the plan, Amerind with set the refinery up on a turn-key basis, with help from collaborator American Industrial Corporation. The initial refining capacity will be 7.5m tonnes of crude per anum, and the facility will produce a range of petroleum products. The capacity will be doubled in the second phase of the plan. According to Amerind, the Export- Import Bank of the US will lend $375m of the project's initial $500m cost, while Andhra Pradesh chief minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy said the project will receive a special incentive package.
Environmentalists have attacked the scheme, citing the refinery’s age and the high levels of pollution and running costs.that caused its 2009 shutdown. "The refinery for which the Andhra Pradesh government has signed the MoU with Amerind with such fanfare is 62 years old. Apparently, its technology is somewhat outdated, its pollution threats fairly significant and its costs so high that it had to close down," said EAS Sarma, Convener of Forum for Better Visakha (FBV), a civil society forum.
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