Profile:  MRPL located in a beautiful hilly terrain north of Mangalore city  subsidiary of ONGC  MRPL has a design capacity to process 9.69 million metric tonnes per annum  MRPL is the only Refinery in India to have 2 Hydrocrackers producing Premium Diesel (High Cetane)..

 MRPL is the only Refinery in India to have 2 CCRs producing Unleaded Petrol of High Octane.  Out of the total refining capacity of India, the contribution of Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Limited is 8%  MRPL has high standards in refining and environment protection matched by its commitments to society.  MRPL is planning to expand its refinery to 15 MMTPA from the existing nameplate capacity of 9.69 MMTPA.

History:  Before acquisition by ONGC in March 2003, MRPL, was a joint venture Oil Refinery promoted by M/s Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL), a public sector company and M/s IRIL & associates (AV Birla Group).  MRPL was set up in 1988 with the initial processing capacity of 3.0 Million Metric tonnes per annum.  It was later expanded to the present capacity of 9.69 Million Metric tonnes per annum.

Awards and Milestones:

 Accredited Five Star rating by British safety council, UK in the year 2003 for its best Health and Safety Management Systems.  Oil Conservation Award from Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas on January 31,  MRPL has bagged the second prize in Jawaharlal Nehru Centenary Awards for Energy Performance of Refineries for  Winner of First Prize of Jawaharlal Nehru Centenary Award, selected by Centre For High Technology, functioning under the aegis of MoP&NG, for the Best Performance in Energy consumption, for the year  National Safety Award for the year 2004 from Ministry of Labour, GOI. Other Accolades earned by MRPL

Manufacturing facilities: Crude and Vacuum Distillation Units: The Atmospheric, Vacuum Distillation Units and Naphtha Splitter Unit designed by M/s Engineers India Ltd., are heat integrated, using Pinch Technology to achieve high-energy efficiency, thereby reducing Fuel Oil consumption and in turn reducing air emissions. Hydrocracker Units: The Hydrocracker Units produce high quality Sulphur free Diesel and ATF. The Plant is designed for 100 percent conversion of low value Vacuum Gas Oils to lighter, low Sulphur valuable products.

Merox (technology UOP, USA) LPG Merox Unit reduces the Sulphur content in LPG. The kerosene Merox Unit converts mercaptans to disulphide. Hydrogen Plant(Technology KTI, Holland) The Hydrogen Plant designed by M/s KTI, Holland, produces Hydrogen by Steam Reforming of Naphtha. Hydrogen purity of 99.9 percent is achieved through the UOP Pressure Swing Adsorption (PSA) Unit. Platforming Units (technology UOP, USA) The Continuous Catalytic Regeneration Platforming Unit (CCR), a State-of-the-Art Unit, produces Lead free, high Octane Motor Spirit (Petrol). Hydrogen produced as a by-product is used in the Hydrocracker Unit. The other by- product is LPG.

Other supported facilities:  Oil Jetty to receive Crude Oil and dispatch Petroleum products by ocean tankers.  Raw Water line, 43 kms long from river Netravathi.  Well equipped laboratory  Blast proof centralized Control Room  DCS based Control Room for all Process Units and offsites.  75 Storage Tanks including 4 Horton Spheres.

Refining THE REFINING PROCESS: Crude Oil comprises of Carbon and Hydrogen molecules in complex chains. In addition, impurities like Sulphur, Nitrogen and Metals are also present in the Crude. They are classified as Paraffinic, Naphthenic or Aromatic Crudes depending on their composition. The Refinery processes are classified into:  Primary Processing Units  Secondary Processing Units  Treating Units Primary Processing Unit: The Crude Unit is the Primary Processing Unit in an Oil Refinery wherein Crude Oil is separated into various products depending on the relative volatility of the Hydrocarbon components. Secondary Processing Unit: Secondary Processing Units receive feedstock from the Crude Unit and upgrade it to value added products. The main Secondary Processing Units in MRPL are:  Hydrocracker Unit  Continuous Catalytic Regeneration Platforming Unit  Visbreaker Unit  Bitumen Unit

Treating Unit: These processes add value to the products from the Refinery and thereby increase profitability. Treating Units play an important role in removing impurities like Sulphur, Nitrogen and Metals from the products thereby meeting the stipulated product specifications. The important Treating Units in MRPL are:  LPG/Naphtha/Kerosine Merox Unit  Diesel Hydrotreater Unit  Sulphur Recovery Unit In all of the Refineries a word is generally used named as Complexity Index. Complexity indexComplexity index : The number and nature of the process units in a refinery determine its Complexity Index.

 Desalter unit washes out salt from the crude oil before it enters the atmospheric distillation unit.  Vacuum Distillation unit further distills residual bottoms after atmospheric distillation  Catalytic Reformer unit is used to convert the naphtha-boiling range molecules into higher octane reformate (reformer product).  Fluid Catalytic Cracker (FCC) unit upgrades heavier fractions into lighter, more valuable products.  Hydrocracker unit uses hydrogen to upgrade heavier fractions into lighter, more valuable products.  Visbreaking unit upgrades heavy residual oils by thermally cracking them into lighter, more valuable reduced viscosity products.  Merox unit treats LPG, kerosene or jet fuel by oxidizing mercaptans to organic disulfides.  Alkylation unit produces high-octane component for gasoline blending.  Isomerization unit converts linear molecules to higher-octane branched molecules for blending into gasoline or feed to alkylation units.  Solvent dewaxing units remove the heavy waxy constituents petrolatum from vacuum distillation products. Common process units in MRPL

Flow Diagram in MRPL The image below is a schematic flow diagram that depicts the various unit processes and the flow of intermediate product streams that occurs between the inlet crude oil feedstock and the final end productsflow diagramunit

Projects Projects Implemented:  Isomerisation Unit  Mixed Xylene Unit Projects which have been approved:  Petrochemical FCCU  Delayed Coker Unit Currently, it is setting up a plant which would deal in aroma based goods. The name of the plant is linear alkyl Benzene (LAB) plant. The latest endeavors in this field have been enlisted below:  Sulphur recovery unit incinerator: Using amine flash column hydrocarbon vapors  Refinery drives: Using variable speed drives  LPG recovering: Hydrocracker unit stabilizer revamp  Crude Unit-2: Advances Process control  Compressor maintenance: Interconnecting Hydrocracker stabilizers

MRPL Capabilities Naptha  Petrochemical grade Naphtha with 70 vol% Paraffins and 10 vol% Aromatics with very low Metals and Sulphur.  Fertilizer grade Naphtha with 65 vol% Paraffins and 12 vol% Aromatics and low in Sulphur.  High Aromatic Naphtha with 60 vol% Paraffins max. and 12 vol% Aromatics min. MS  Motor Gasoline with 3% Benzene, 89 Ron & 0.05% Sulphur Grade.  Motor Gasoline with 1% Benzene, 89 Ron & 0.05% Sulphur.  Motor Gasoline Export 5% Benzene, 97 Ron, Doctor test negative & aromatics 68 vol%.  Reformate with 96 Ron (Aromatic Stream).  MRPL is the first Refinery in India to release Euro-III MS. ATF  Domestic grade ATF.  Export grade ATF meeting Def Stan (Defence Standard) issue -5. HSD  HSD with 0.25% & 0.05 Sulphur with 35 flash  HSD with 0.5% Sulphur or even less, upto 0.05 wt% and 66 flash (Export grade)  MRPL is the first Refinery in India to produce Euro-III HSD.

Quality Management: MRPL implemented Quality Management System (QMS) as per ISO 9000:1994 standards from December 1999 and after obtaining its first accreditation. Later in January 2003, MRPL upgraded its QMS to ISO 9001:2000 standards and was accredited on March 13, 2003 by TUV Rheinland. This certifies that the production system and quality of the Refinery products has been established in conformance with international standards. QMS is diligently followed throughout the Refinery (wherever applicable). Having definite quality objectives, continual improvement projects, conducting regular corrective actions and preventive action sessions have helped to achieve improvements in the system. Internal audits for individual departments, management review meetings, awareness programmes for employees, collection and review of customer feedback and customer meet programmes are other steps to confirm to standards. MRPL's Quality Policy:

Major products by MRPL: Petroleum products are usually grouped into three categories: light distillates (LPG, gasoline, naphtha), middle distillates (kerosene, diesel), heavy distillates and residuum (heavy fuel oil, lubricating oils, wax, tar). This classification is based on the way crude oil is distilled and separated into fractions (called distillates and residuum).  Liquid petroleum gas (LPG)  Gasoline (also known as petrol)  Naphtha (Fertilizer Grade & Export Grade)  Kerosene and related jet aircraft fuels (ATF)  Diesel fuel  Furnace oil  Fuel oils  Lubricating oils  Paraffin wax  Asphalt and Tar  Petroleum coke

Other Products: Many of these are not produced in all petroleum refineries.  Specialty petroleum naphthas  Specialty solvents  Elemental sulfur (and sometimes sulfuric acid)  Petrochemical feedstocks  Asphalt and tar  Petroleum coke  Lubricating oils  Waxes and greases  Transformer and cable oils  Carbon black

Short-circuit causes major damage at MRPL plant:  Electrical short-circuit on 24 aug’09 evening  Which occurred in substation 4 of the oil movement and storage (OMS)  Presently, the crude distillation unit (CDU) number 1 is the only one that is working  Work at the second CDU, two hydrocracker units, two visbreaker units, two sulphur recovery units as well as two continuous catalytic reformer units have come to a halt.  The plant is working at about 30 per cent of its capacity.  short circuit in the OMS resulted in a “multiple reverse ripple effect”, resulting in the shutting down of all previous electrical circuits leading to substation  All hydrocarbons in the refinery are maintained at a temperature between 200 and 400 degrees Celsius. With the sudden power outage, these temperatures also began to plummet.  The cooling down of the plant caused the sudden contraction of equipment.  Several tubes in the CDU unit and the oil pipe of steam turbine number cracked. The oil began to drip onto the hot steam turbine and caught fire.  This accident was caused because the plant was working at over 120 per cent of capacity.