Indian Oil eyes nuclear, rules out Nayara stake

Indian Oil Corp. Ltd is preparing a new strategy to build small modular reactors (SMR) and large nuclear power plants in the country, chairman Arvinder Singh Sahney said.

- Rituraj Baruah & Utpal Bhaskar

India’s largest oil refiner and marketer is taking fresh look at nuclear diversification, Sahney said in an interview, though the company had earlier tied up with Nuclear Power Corp. of India Ltd (NPCIL) for the venture. He did not reveal plans for the technology partner.

India's Bharat SMR (BSR) is being designed with a capacity of 200 MWe, while a smaller 55 MWe variant is also under development. However, Indian Oil did not participate in NPCIL's recent bids to set up such reactors for captive use. Indian Oil’s large refineries consume as much power as produced by BSRs, Sahney said, prompting it to consider building them.

“We have not participated in NPCIL’s request for proposal (RFP) process, but we are looking into it in a renewed manner...It was 10 years back when we tied up with NPCIL. But now there is a renewed energy to it,” he said.