Caltex’s magazine for employees, franchisees & resellers
Issue 43 Jun – Jul 08
Article Highlights
The number of cars on the road in Mumbai, Delhi and other cities is staggering. To go from the office to the airport here might take two and a half to three hours. As a result, there’s a huge and growing demand for petrol and diesel in India.
In this issue:
Postcard from India
Eion Turnbull breaks a coconut in a religious ceremony to bless a new crude unit
Dr Eion Turnbull, a former Caltex refining executive, is head of the big Essar refinery in Gujerat. He offers The Star an intriguing glimpse into the booming life of the subcontinent.
Growth in India is very evident. I recently got back from a trip to Mumbai where I saw the world's largest slum being demolished to make way for a new suburb. The squatters are being given new homes. There are new shopping complexes and housing estates popping up all over the place.
Virtually everywhere you look you can see the struggle between new and old playing out. One of the most striking images was the sight of a nomad and his family with two camels and a tent making their traditional trek against the backdrop of the Reliance refinery, arguably the largest in the world.
I’m in a place where during the day the temperature gets up to forty degrees. My Essar refinery is capable of processing up to 280,000 barrels of crude oil a day currently and we will soon expand that to 680,000 barrels a day with an associated petro-chemical complex. I’ve been living in a guesthouse nearby.
The number of cars on the road in Mumbai, Delhi and other cities is staggering. To go from the office to the airport here might take two and a half to three hours. As a result, there’s a huge and growing demand for petrol and diesel in India.
One of the most impressive things about the Indian response to this and other challenges is that their strategic objective is very clear: they have to be world-scale or it’s not worth being involved in. They show no fear when it comes to investment.
These are not simple refineries built to make the products of yesteryear. They’re built for the products of tomorrow, equivalent to Australia’s new clean fuels and better.
The other thing that’s fascinating is the get up and go of people. When you become rich you tend to take what you’ve got for granted. But here the enthusiasm, energy and contribution you get from everyone is just amazing. If anything you have to hold them back.
The other thing is they’re very focused on building the capability to process poorer-quality crudes. Good quality crudes are becoming scarcer and capability to handle the lesser quality ones is going to be crucial to long term success.
Eion Turnbull, Essar Oil