Efforts are on to expand our products base, says CPCL MD

Rejoicing over its recent Navratna status and the increased financial cap, Chennai Petroleum Corporation Limited (CPCL) has begun efforts to expand its products base. “We are the only refinery in the country to make fuels, lubes, and wax. We are looking at the possibility of improving the quality of wax and bringing more lube variants,” said H. Shankar, managing director, CPCL.

Speaking to The Hindu, Mr. Shankar said that the company’s financial health is very strong and with the increased freedom of Navratna, it can expeditiously take proposals to the board.

Absorbing capex

“It is a nice time to start the process of moving towards new projects. We have the capability to absorb capex on our own and have the strength to borrow. Post COVID-19, every single employee of ours has been focussing on what we can do for the company. That is being reflected in both physical and financial performance.”

Wax and lubes would be the two products that are likely to be taken up first to study the possibility of value addition.

“At present we produce wax for candles and packaging. We can tweak the product and bring higher quality wax or variants that can be used in other industries. In the case of lubes, we can add value like white oil that can be used in the cosmetics industry,” he said.

On the status of the expansion of refinery, which has a capacity 10.5 million tonnes per annum, at Manali near Chennai, he said that Engineers India were already doing the feasibility study for it. “It is one of the major projects that we have in mind.”

“The secondary units, storage tanks, pipelines, and other units have to be studied in a comprehensive manner. Over the next six months or so we will do a deep dive on what projects we will take up, and how to balance capacity expansion and value addition,” he said.

On Cauvery Basin Refinery at Nagapattinam, Mr. Shankar said that they were working on the configuration and seeing how it can be constituted into a different model so that the company can get more returns on investments.