Website : http://www.mrpl.co.in/ Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Limited (MRPL), is an oil refinery at Mangalore and is a subsidiary of ONGC, set up in 1993. The refinery is located at Katipalla, north from centre of Mangalore city. The refinery was established after displacing five villages of Bala, Kalavar, Kuthetoor, Katipalla, and Adyapadi.
The refinery has a versatile design with high flexibility to process crudes of various API gravity and with high degree of automation. MRPL has a design capacity to process 9.69 million metric tonnes per annum and is the only refinery in India to have two hydrocrackers producing premium diesel (high cetane). It is also the only refinery in India to have two CCRs producing unleaded petrol of high octane. Currently, the refinery is processing about 12.5 million tonnes of crude per year and had a turnover of US$8 billion during last year.
MRPL, which was a joint sector company, become a PSU subsequent on acquisition of its majority shares by ONGC. As on 1 April 2007, 71.62% shares are held by ONGC, 16.95% shares are held by HPCL, and remaining shares are with public and financial institutions. MRPL has also been declared as Miniratna, a mini jewel, by Government of India in 2007.
Before acquisition by ONGC in March 2003, MRPL was a joint venture oil refinery promoted by M/s Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL), a public sector company and M/s IRIL & associates (AV Birla Group). MRPL was set up in 1988 with the initial processing capacity of 3.0 million metric tonnes per annum that was later expanded to the present capacity of 9.69 million metric tonnes per annum.
The refinery was conceived to maximise middle distillates, with capability to process light to heavy and sour to sweet crudes with 24 to 46 API gravity. On 28 March 2003, ONGC acquired the total shareholding of A.V. Birla Group and further infused equity capital of Rs.6 billion thus making MRPL a majority-held subsidiary of ONGC. The lenders also agreed to the debt restructuring package (DRP) proposed by ONGC, which included, inter alia, conversion up to Rs365 core of their loans into equity. Subsequently, ONGC has acquired equity allotted to the lenders pursuant to DRP raising ONGC's holding in MRPL to 71.62 percent.