India’s newest Maharatna refiner eyes East, Northeast domination after expansion

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NRL is also called the Assam Accord Refinery because its establishment was incorporated as a promise in the 1985 agreement that ended a violent six-year agitation to eject undocumented foreigners from the State. (Photo: www.nrl.co.in)

Numaligarh Refinery Limited (NRL), India’s newest Maharatna company, hopes to dominate the fuel market in Eastern and Northeastern India after commissioning its expansion project by March 2027.

A subsidiary of Oil India Limited (OIL), the NRL is also called the Assam Accord Refinery because its establishment was incorporated as a promise in the 1985 agreement that ended a violent six-year agitation to eject undocumented foreigners from the State.

“Our flagship expansion project, which will increase the NRL’s capacity from the current 3 MMTPA (million metric tonnes per annum) to 9 MMTPA, has achieved 87.1% physical progress and is expected to be commissioned by March 2027,” NRL Chairman Ranjit Rath, who is also the Chairman-cum-Managing Director of OIL, told journalists after the company’s 33rd annual general meeting on Friday (September 11, 2026).

He said the expansion would help NRL cater to eastern India, specifically West Bengal, and the northeastern region comprising eight States, where the demand for fuel has been increasing steadily. “We should be able to expand our operations to the neighbouring countries once the expansion project stabilises, which takes time,” Mr. Rath said.

The NRL has a product pipeline from West Bengal’s Siliguri to supply diesel to Bangladesh. The company’s refinery based in eastern Assam’s Golaghat district is India’s only facility that supplies high-altitude diesel to Bhutan.

NRL, elevated from the Miniratna Category-1 to the Navaratna status in December 2025, hopes to resume fuel supply to Myanmar after normality returns to the civil war-torn country.

Mr. Rath said NRL’s net worth for the 2025-26 financial year increased 17.69% from 2024-25, while its profit after tax grew more than 90% to touch ₹3,057 crore.

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