Bathinda refinery to start by March 2011 - HPCL

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd said the 180,000 barrels-per-day Bathinda refinery will start operations by February or March of 2011.

The refinery is being built by a consortium of state-run HPCL and Mittal Energy, a company owned by billionaire Lakshmi Mittal.

The refinery would start crude processing from February-March and supply of refined products would begin in April-May, Arun Balakrishnan, the chairman of HPCL, told a conference to announce its annual results..

"By June 2011 the refinery will be fully commissioned," he said, adding the new plant would meet fuel demand of northern states of Punjab, Haryana, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh and parts of eastern state of Bihar.

Balakrishnan also said HPCL would take a final decision on the capacity and location of the new coastal refinery in western Maharashtra state by end-August. HPCL was looking at building a 300,000 bpd-400,000 bpd refinery, he said.

"As per current estimates an investment of about 300 billion rupees ($6.40 billion) would be required for 300,000 bpd to 320,000 bpd refinery," he added.

HPCL current operates a 180,000 bpd plant at Mumbai but lacks room to expand it.

Balakrishnan said a decision on whether to continue with the existing Mumbai refinery would be taken in the next 6-7 years. HPCL also operates a 150,000 bpd refinery at Vizag in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh.

(Reporting by Nidhi Verma, editing by Anthony Barker)