Press release

In December 2015, the Austrian engineering company Pörner Ingenieurgesellschaft mbH was awarded the contract for the planning and delivery of a Biturox® bitumen plant by HPCL-Mittal Energy Limited (HMEL) of India, which is a joint venture of Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd. and Mittal Energy Investment Pte. Ltd. (Singapore).

The bitumen plant will be situated in Bathinda, in northwest India, at Guru Gobind Singh Refinery (GGSR). GGSR is the fifth largest refinery in India, with zero-residue strategy. The Biturox® plant fits perfectly in this strategy, since it helps in better value realization to process a blend of vacuum residue, HVGO and HCGO to quality bitumen. The plant will produce 500,000 tons of bitumen of grade VG 10, 30 and 40 per year, which is used for road construction.

Pörner supplies the license, basic engineering, key equipment, site supervision, commissioning support and training of personnel for the project.

Only 15 months after the contract signature, the mechanical completion is scheduled. In order to meet the ambitious timeline, the kick-off meeting at the refinery already took place in early January 2016.

The mutual trust is visible, because Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL), one of the joint venture partners in HMEL has a long-term partnership with Pörner. As early as 1998, a Biturox® plant was built for HPCL at the Visakh refinery in Visakhapatnam, which still produces quality bitumen reliably.

Managing Director Andreas Pörner says: “This plant brings the number of Biturox® licenses we granted worldwide to 50 and in India to ten. We are pleased that costumers are that satisfied with our engineering services. Now the plants, built under Pörner license in India, produce a total of more than three million tons of bitumen per year. That amounts to approximately 65 % of India's total production.”

Media Echo (Selected):

Process World Wide 04/03/16 (E)

Leitbetriebe Austria 07/03/2016 (DE)

Factory 07/03/2016 (DE)

WorldHighways 04/04/2016 (E)