USTDA Supports Refinery Modernization in India

(The Exporting Source) Project Focuses on the Development of Cleaner Transportation Fuels

NEW DELHI, India – Today, the U.S. Trade and Development Agency awarded a grant to the Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL), a state-owned refiner in India. The grant funds a feasibility study that will recommend technologies to improve yields at BPCL’s Mumbai refinery while also meeting increasingly stringent quality and environmental standards for transportation fuels.

“This project builds upon USTDA’s long history of supporting India’s refining sector by introducing new technologies to meet ever more rigorous standards,” said USTDA Regional Director Henry Steingass, who signed the grant alongside BPCL Director B.K. Datta. “It also demonstrates how our countries’ governments are working together to enable the production of cleaner transportation fuels in an economically viable manner.”

The study will review options for improving the processing of the “bottom of the barrel,” or the heaviest portions of a barrel of crude oil, to develop higher value transportation fuels. These fuels will meet new international standards for sulfur oxides emitted from marine transport fuels. The recommendations may also be utilized by other refineries in India.

The opportunity to conduct the USTDA-funded feasibility study will be competed on the Federal Business Opportunities (FBO) website. A link to the FBO announcement will be posted to USTDA’s website at www.ustda.gov. Interested U.S. firms should submit proposals according to the instructions in the FBO announcement.

This grant agreement was signed in advance of the U.S.-India Energy Dialogue and the U.S.-India Strategic and Commercial Dialogue, scheduled for September 21 and 22 in Washington, D.C., to follow through on commitments made by both countries related to technical cooperation on transportation fuels.