Mumbai:
Top private oil refiners are taking precautions but do not anticipate any impact on their operations from cyclone Nilofar, which is expected to hit the Gujarat's west coast on Saturday, officials said.
Nilofar, classified as a 'very severe cyclonic storm', is expected to weaken to a 'cyclonic storm' when it makes landfall on the northern Gujarat coast, according to the Indian Meteorological Department.
Reliance Industrie, controlled by Mukesh Ambani, operates the world's biggest refining complex in Gujarat, where its two adjacent plants can process about 1.4 million barrels per day (bpd) of oil.
But that complex and Essar Oil Ltd's 400,000-barrel-per-day Vadinar refinery do not lie directly in the expected path of the cyclone, officials from both companies said.
"We have operating procedures for any kind of eventuality," a person with direct knowledge of Reliance's operations told Reuters. Essar Oil said in an emailed statement that it was taking "all due precautions" and did not expect any production outage.
© Thomson Reuters 2014