State-run Hindustan Petroleum Corporation (HPCL) said on Thursday that restoration work of the Crude Distillation Unit (CDU) of HPCL Rajasthan Refinery (HRRL) has been completed and the unit has started operations.

“We wish to inform that the CDU restoration work has been completed and the Unit has been successfully started. All product streams from the CDU/VDU are being produced and routed to the respective tanks for downstream processing,” HPCL said in a BSE filing.

On April 20, the CDU of the HRRL refinery at Barmer in Rajasthan caught fire, which was a day before its scheduled inauguration by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

At the time of the incident, HPCL had said that prima facie, it appears that leakage of hydrocarbons through one of the valves and/or flanges in the heat exchanger circuit caused the fire.

However, the company did not inform about the status of the two investigations into the fire incident at the refinery.

The Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas (MoPNG) had set up a four-member team to investigate the fire incident in the refinery, which is led by ex-Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals (MRPL) Managing Director M Venkatesh. Besides, HPCL has also formed an internal team to investigate the fire incident.

With this and operations of various downstream units, HRRL Refinery has already commenced production of some of the main petroleum products, such as BS-VI High Speed Diesel (HSD), LPG, Petcoke and Naphtha, it added.

“Sale of LPG and Petcoke has already been started and dispatches of BS-VI HSD are expected to commence by end of this week. This would be followed by commencement of production and dispatches of BS-VI Motor Spirit (MS) by next week,” the PSU oil marketing company (OMC) said.

HPCL and HRRL management remains focused on ensuring safe, stable and efficient operations as the refinery progressively ramps up production to optimal capacity utilisation.

HPCL holds 74 per cent stake in HRRL, while the Rajasthan government holds 26 per cent in the complex, which has a 9 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) crude refining capacity, including 2.4 MTPA of petrochemicals.

Published on June 18, 2026