April 9, 2012:

Kolkata-  The 3 million tonne Numaligarh Refinery Ltd may take at least a fortnight to start full operations, according to company sources.  Following a fire at its hydro-cracker unit on April 7, the refinery operations have come to a standstill with the exception of the motor spirit (petrol) plant which is running on stored inputs.  According to sources, work is currently on to resume the operations of crude distillation unit (CDU) – the mother plant of a refinery – in next 48 hours.  Set up as part of the resolutions of Assam Accord in 1985, the Numaligarh-based refinery is a 61 per cent subsidiary of oil marketing major Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL).

While forensic investigation behind the cause of fire is on, NRL sources are not comfortable with the “sabotage” or ‘terrorist activity” theories in circulation.  “The place of fire is in a highly protected zone, much inside the factory, and should not be accessible to any outsider. We are not sure about the cause of fire. Prima facie it does not appear to be an act of sabotage,” a senior NRL official told Business Line.  According to an official, the fire destroyed the cooling area in the hydro-cracker and part of the stored hydrocarbon. “The impact could have been higher that the fire spread to the adjoining reactor. However, the disaster management team successfully contained the fire in a span of only two and half hours,” he said.

By Business Line