Barauni Refinery Received the Best Refinery Award | Bihar | 14 Oct 2023

Why In News?

Recently, Center for High Technology (CHT) of the Union Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas awarded the prestigious Best Refinery Performance Improvement Award under the category of Capacity Less than 09 MMTPA to Barauni Refinery located in Begusarai district of Bihar.

Key Points:

• It is noteworthy that in the 26th Energy Technology Meeting organized by CHT in New Delhi from 9-11 October, Union Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas and Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs Hardeep Singh Puri met Indian Oil Chairman Shrikant Madhav Vaidya, Director (Refineries) Shukla Mistry. And this award was given to R.K. Jha, Executive Director and Refinery Head of Barauni Refinery.
• The theme of the 26th Energy Technology Meeting was 'Emerging Energy Trends and the Future of Refining' and was attended by around 1400 delegates and speakers from across the world.
• The evaluation of the award was based on seven important parameters for the financial year 2022-23.
• Barauni Refinery performed better than all the refineries in the country during 2022-23 on all parameters including crude throughput 6785.40, MBN 71.24, operational availability 99.90%, operating cost $1.92/bbl, specific steam consumption 0.90, energy conservation measures 18807 SRFT/year, specific water consumption 0.83 and carbon emission intensity of less than 1459.50 TMT.
• A state-owned Barauni refinery of Indian Oil was constructed in 1964 with a capacity to refine 1 million metric tonnes per annum at a cost of Rs 49.40 crore with limited participation of Romania in collaboration with the Soviet Union. It was dedicated to the nation by the then Petroleum Minister Dr. Humayun Kabir on January 15, 1965.
• As a new initiative towards energy efficient operations at Barauni refinery in May 2022, India's first and the world's third green cooling tower was commissioned.