Indian Oil Corporation is looking at exporting petrochemicals from its Panipat refinery to Pakistan. It has also asked the Railways to work out the feasibility of transporting diesel to Pakistan from Panipat or Mathura refineries.
The Railway undertaking Container Corporation of India (Concor) is working out the feasibility of transporting petrochemicals in containers.
Senior officials told Business Standard that talks with Pakistan were going on for bringing out petroleum and petrochemical products out of the negative list of exports.
If the Pakistan government agrees, it would also mark Concor's entry into Pakistan. "The deal is in the initial stages as the railway ministry has to decide on taking the proposal forward, after both the governments agreed on transportation of the petrochemicals," said a Concor executive.
IOC is investing Rs 5,100 crore (Rs 51 billion) to develop an aromatics and purified terephthalic acid (PTA) complex at Panipat in Haryana.
The aromatics production will comprise 357,000 tonnes per annum (tpa) paraxylene (PX), 21,000 tpa of benzene as well as 553,000 tpa of PTA.
The complex is scheduled to be commissioned in August 2005. IOC had shortlisted three refineries for supplying diesel to Karachi.
These include the Reliance refinery in Jamnagar, Oil and Natural Gas Corporation's refinery in Mangalore and its own refinery at Koyali in Gujarat.
"The upcoming complex at Panipat could supply to Pakistan," said an official.
Pakistan State Oil Corporation had identified Karachi, Jhelum and Lahore for receiving 2.6 million tonne of diesel from IOC.
"Diesel for Jhelum and Lahore can be sourced from the refineries in the north. Initially, we were looking at only Panipat. But now we are also looking at the Mathura refinery," said a senior executive.
Diesel for Lahore and Jhelum in Pakistan could be transported through wagons since a rail link with Lahore was already in place.
The fuel can even be transported by road. The possibility of a pipeline to Lahore and Jhelum was also being explored but that would be done only after the contract period warrants it.
"If the supply agreement is reached only for a short period, then we may not look at the pipeline," he added.
It would be feasible to transport diesel to Karachi by sea from Gujarat. Pakistan identified a requirement of 1.2 mt diesel in Lahore, 1 mt in Karachi and 0.4 mt in Jhelum. Pakistan currently imports most of its diesel from the West Asia. It imports 4.5 mt diesel out of a total requirement of 7.2 mt.
