Asia fuel thirst puts new life into plant

NEW DELHI: Hindustan Petroleum Corp, India's third-biggest state-run refiner, revived plans to build a 200 billion-rupee ($4.3 billion) refinery and petrochemicals plant in southern India to benefit from rising Asian fuel demand.

"This project is for meeting demand in the country as well as for exports to other Asian nations," K. Murali, director of refineries, said in a telephone interview from Mumbai. "We are looking at the long term."

Asian refineries are expanding capacity to meet rising oil demand in the region even as companies in the developed world are halting operations as profits from processing fuel decline.