The Numaligarh Refinery Ltd (NRL), a state-owned enterprise in Assam paid first interim dividend of around Rs. 122.61 crore to the state government for the current fiscal, an official statement said.
The managing director S.K. Barua of NRL, delivered the dividend cheque to chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal in the presence of chief secretary Jishnu Baruah and other top officials.
Assam has a proprietorship of 12.35 per cent company.
The dividend was for the second quarter of the financial year till September, according to the official statement. The year-end dividend would be decided at the NRL’s annual general meeting on March 31, after the current financial year ending.
The NRL is undertaking as Rs. 949 crore plans to increase its capacity and lay 2,200 km of a crude oil pipeline from Odisha’s Paradip port to Numaligarh, and a product pipeline from Numaligarh to West Bengal’s Siliguri.
The company would invest Rs. 949 crore in the current financial year for its capital projects, including refinery expansion project from the current 3 MMTPA to 9 MMTPA besides laying the crude oil pipeline, said a senior NRL official. This pipeline would also serve to the industrial customers in the north eastern states including NRL.
The NRL is also laying the 130 km transnational India-Bangladesh Friendship Pipeline (IBFPL) from its marketing terminal in Siliguri to Parbatipur in Bangladesh.