Russia's Rosneft has shown interest in establishing a greenfield refinery in India as a joint venture with domestic state-owned refiners. According to them, India's public sector refiners are separately looking for foreign partners as they pursue a scaled-down replacement for the $44 billion west coast refinery that hasn't moved forward in years.
The Russian company is believed to have had preliminary negotiations about a new project in India with executives at state-run refineries and Indian government officials. This won't be connected to the Gujarat refinery run by Nayara Energy, which is sponsored by Rosneft.
IOC and BPCL are prime candidates to partner up According to Rosneft, cooperation with Indian businesses is being developed along the entire technological chain, from petroleum product manufacturing to refining and sales. "Rosneft wants to increase collaboration with Indian
business partners. You will learn more about specific plans later in the relevant company announcements. The state-owned Indian Oil Corp, Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd (HPCL), and Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd (BPCL) as well as the oil ministry did not respond to requests for information. Although it's not yet obvious which Indian refiner will join forces with Rosneft, Indian Oil and BPCL appear to be the front-runners. Due to the greenfield refinery HPCL is constructing in Rajasthan, it is overleveraged. While BPCL has a land piece available for an upcoming refinery in Uttar Pradesh, Indian Oil is the most optimistic among state enterprises about expanding capacity and already has a crude purchase arrangement with Rosneft.
State refiners are becoming more aware that they require an alternative to the west coast project in which Saudi Aramco had planned to take a 50% stake in 2018. Indian Oil, BPCL, and HPCL are all working together to develop the project. According to those familiar with the situation, the leadership may become sidetracked by the lack of land and the political unrest in Maharashtra, harming the project's chances.
Overseas partners- The government and state refiners believe that India must build new capacity in order to satisfy future fuel demand and cannot keep waiting for the west coast refinery to start operating. As a result, he said, each state refiner is now preparing to leave the joint venture and independently assess greenfield capacity in collaboration with foreign firms. More foreign organisations will probably be contacted for partnership talks.
To a person familiar with the plans of the companies, state refiners intend to retain the majority of any joint venture with foreign companies since doing so would enable them to maintain control over the crude procurement strategy and product pricing in the domestic market.