Coal news and updates

MRPL likely to start selling pet coke from next week

April 4: ONGC subsidiary Mangalore Refineries and Petrochemicals Ltd (MRPL), which had been delaying commissioning of its 1-million-tons-per annum (mtpa) petroleum coke facility at its refinery in Mangalore since August 2013, is likely to start selling the material from the week beginning April 7, 2014, a source told ICMW.

The company commenced production of pet coke recently, sources said.

"The company will initially sell the material through direct selling to some of the consumers, including cement-makers, but will later on switch to allotment through the e-auction route," the source said.

"It has already done pre-booking to a large extent and the company is likely to initially produce 35,000-40,000 tons of pet coke per month," the source said, indicating that initially the company will not operate at its full capacity of nearly 80,000 tons per month.

"MRPL has presently some export commitment for petrol and diesel and for this it will use sweet crude in higher quantities but once the export obligation is complete the company will start using sour crude and then increase pet coke production," the source added.

The pricing by MRPL is likely to be a bit competitive or at around Rs 6,000 per ton ex-refinery in order to lure customers, mainly from southern India, who are currently buying large quantities of imported met coke, the source felt.

Incidentally, commissioning of the pet coke facility at MRPL was delayed considerably despite everything being ready, a source had earlier told ICMW.

Commissioning of the facility was earlier scheduled in August 2013, which was then extended to December 2013 and again to January 2014 and finally to March 2014.

At the beginning of March, there was an indication that the pet coke facility in Mangalore will commence operation during the same month, but finally the operation has commenced in April.