Bharat Petroleum Plans Kochi Oil Refinery Shutdown in October

By Dinakar Sethuraman and Nesa Subrahmaniyan

Sept. 4 (Bloomberg) -- Bharat Petroleum Corp., India's second-biggest, state-run refiner, plans to shut its Kochi refinery in southern India in October, a company official said.

The scheduled maintenance would take 15 to 20 days, said the official, who asked not to be identified because of company rules. The official declined to say which units would be shut.

Bharat Petroleum is working on expanding capacity at the Kochi refinery by 2 million tons to 9.5 million tons a year, R.K. Singh, director for refineries, said in April.

To contact the reporters on this story: Dinakar Sethuraman in Singapore at dinakar@bloomberg.net; Nesa Subrahmaniyan in Singapore at nesas@bloomberg.net.