'ONGC's refinery will come up at Kakinada'

NEW DELHI: Amid reports of Oil and Natural Gas Corp dilly-dallying on setting up a refinery at Kakinada in Andhra Pradesh, Minister of State for Commerce JairamRamesh has said the project has the Prime Minister's backing and will be implemented.

"The Prime Minister has said categorically that the ONGC refinery would come up at Kakinada," Ramesh, a Rajya Sabha MP from Andhra Pradesh, said in an interaction with journalists from the state.
   
ONGC had in a pre-feasibility report found the size of 7.5 million tonnes economically unviable and was now doing an techno-economic analysis of a 15 million tonne unit. Even on the enlarged capacity, it had sought fiscal incentives like exemption from local levies and free of cost land.
  
Ramesh said Prime Minister had spoken to Andhra Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhar Reddy and told him "in no uncertain terms" that the refinery was coming up.

"The Prime Minister has also conveyed this to the Petroleum Ministry," he said.
   
Media reports had suggested that ONGC, which had proposed the project in 2005, was no longer keen as the country already had surplus in refining capacity and newer projects like Reliance Petroleum's 29 million tonne refinery at Jamnagar in Gujarat will result in a glut of fuel supplies.

"It is our job to make it (the project) viable," he said commenting on the reports.