NEW DELHI, April 8 (Reuters) - India's cabinet approved an 84% increase in the project costs of HPCL Rajasthan Refinery Ltd (HRRL) to 794.59 billion rupees ($8.60 billion), Information Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Wednesday.
Here are some more details:
* HPCL Rajasthan Refinery Ltd is a joint venture with HPCLowning a 74% stake and the rest owned by the state government ofRajasthan. * New Delhi also approved an additional equity investment of89.62 billion rupees by HPCL. The state-run refiner's totalequity investment after the increase will be 196 billion rupees,the government said in a statement. * The refinery will start commercial operations in July thisyear and during operations, will have 10,000 direct jobs,Vaishnaw said. It will use both local crude available inRajasthan and imported crude, he added. * HRRL will produce petrol, diesel and other chemicals suchas polypropylene, high and linear low-density polyethylene,benzene, toluene and butadiene. * These products are critical in sectors such astransportation, pharma and paints; the production from theproject will reduce India's reliance on imports and help saveforeign exchange, the statement said.
($1 = 92.3530 Indian rupees)
(Reporting by CK Nayak and Hritam Mukherjee, writing by Sakshi Dayal; Editing by YP Rajesh and Elaine Hardcastle)
