Bharat Petroleum Corporation of India (BPCL) recently revealed the maintenance turnaround details with ChemAnalyst. BPCL’s Kochi refinery has been on maintenance turnaround since September 25th, 2022, “leading the company to face losses of millions,” a company official revealed to ChemAnalyst. As per the recent discussion, this shutdown is expected to end by October 25th 2022, eventually delivering a breath of relief to the company. Furthermore, the refinery is currently running at 30% of its capacity, which is not enough to satisfy the current demand in the market.

According to the sources, the shutdown involves primary and secondary units of the refinery, including maintenance of 210,000 b/d crude distillation unit, Fluid Catalytic Cracker (FCC), Diesel hydrotreater, Vacuum Gas Oil (VGO) hydrotreater, sulfur recovery unit and hydrogen generator.

The shutdown of these units of the refinery has disturbed the supplies for the domestic market, which has been a major concern for the officials. Under the influence of this turnaround, supplies of several crude derivatives like motor spirit, diesel, sulfur, aromatic, and several other petrochemicals have been halted for regular buyers.

Despite the fact that crude derivatives like Phenol, Benzene, and Pet Coke have been falling for the last three months in the Indian market, demand for these commodities is still persistent due to ongoing festivities in the country. Meanwhile, several other petrochemical derivatives, including Ethylene and Propylene, have been fluctuating in the domestic market as the demand from the packaging sector has revived temporarily.

As per the ChemAnalyst analysis, domestic traders have experienced a fall in supplies of the abovementioned products from the regular routes. However, the domestic demand was partially filled by imports and from other alternative routes within the country; thus, an overall decline in prices was observed during this timeframe. Additionally, as it was a planned turnaround, authorized distributors maintained adequate inventory levels to satisfy demand from regular buyers. Nevertheless, it is expected that once the plant starts operating at its standard capacity, inventories will be replenished again.