The Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) plans to complete the merger of its refining subsidiary Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals (MRPL) with the recently acquired Hindustan Petroleum Corp (HPCL) by June 2021.
This is being done in order to align its upstream and downstream operations into two verticals and focus more into respective businesses.
ONGC’s two oil refining subsidiaries, HPCL and MRPL, will start immediately after the company completes merging ONGC Mangalore Petrochemical (OMPL) with MRPL by June 2021.
Once OMPL-MRPL merger is complete, the second round of merger will be kicked off immediately so that ONGCs operations is given two distinct identities in the form of separate upstream and downstream operations.
The board of MRPL on 19 October 2020 has approved acquisition of 49 percent stake in OMPL from ONGC.
This has paved the way for merging OMPL with MRPL that is expected to be completed in the next six-eight months. Once this is done, the next stage of merging MRPL with HPCL will begin.
OMPL, a subsidiary of MRPL, is a joint venture between ONGC and MRPL, set up for value addition of excess naphtha and aromatic streams available from MRPL refinery. The complex is the largest single stream unit in Asia to produce 914 ktpa Paraxylene and 283 ktpa Benzene.
MRPL is a subsidiary of ONGC and schedule ‘A’ Miniratna, Central Public Sector Enterprise (CPSE), under the Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas. As of 30 September 2020, ONGC held 71.63 percent and HPCL held 16.96 percent stake in MRPL.