LN Mittal visits Bathinda refinery

LN Mittal visits Bathinda refinery
Steel tycoon and Chairman of ArcelorMittal inaugurates various units in the Rs 18,000 crore refinery
Rajay Deep
Tribune News Service

Bathinda, February 5

Steel tycoon LN Mittal accompanied by his wife and senior officials of the Hindustan-Mittal Energy Ltd (HMEL) visited the Rs 18,000-crore Guru Gobind Singh Refinery, today. Mittal inaugurated various units in the plant and expressed satisfaction over the pace of construction work.
Though their visit was kept a secret, highly-placed sources in the refinery said the Mittal couple drove to the refinery and spent about four hours at the facility. Chairman and Managing Director of Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL) Arun Balakrishnan also accompanied the Mittals.
After planting some saplings, the Mittal couple pressed the start button of the Nitrogen compression unit. Then they visited the CDU-VDU unit¸ where they inaugurated the crude pre-flash unit. The dignitaries also inspected the FCC unit, main control room and a state-of-the-art laboratory.
It was a surprise for all, when visiting one unit after the other, LN Mittal had interacted with the workers and enquired about their health and safety.
Later, Mittal accompanied by Arun Balakrishnan, held a closed-door meeting with the board of directors and other senior officials of the refinery.
According to reports, refinery officials told Mittal that about 95 per cent of the total construction work of the 9 million metric tonne per annum capacity refinery, with a captive power plant of 165 Mw had been completed. The refinery would be ready for trial run at the scheduled time, said officials.
Mittal hailed the efforts of the staff in the refinery, saying that it was due to their joint efforts that the dream was about to come true.
In a recent statement, officials had announced that the trial run of the refinery would take place around March 31, and it would start running at its full capacity by September, 2011.