RoydadNaft –  India’s second-largest fuel retailer, Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL), plans to raise its refining capacity by 10 million tons per year by 2028, as the biggest Indian refiners consider a massive expansion to processing capacity to meet growing demand.

State-controlled BPCL expects to raise its total refining capacity to 45 million tons per year by 2028 from the current 35.3 million tons per year, BPCL’s head of refining Sanjay Khanna said on Tuesday, as carried by Reuters.

The increase in refining capacity is expected to come from higher capacity at the company’s refineries at Mumbai, Bina, and Kochi, the refiner’s executive said at an industry event.

Reports emerged earlier this year that BPCL is in talks with major local banks to secure a loan of about $3.8 billion which it will use to expand the capacity of one of its refineries, Bina.

BPCL is looking to raise around $3.8 billion (320 billion Indian rupees) from lenders to boost the capacity of its Bina refinery in the Madhya Pradesh state in central India.

Separately, state-held Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), the biggest oil and gas explorer in India, is assessing plans for an $8.3-billion refinery plus petrochemicals project in the most populous Indian state to take advantage of growing fuel demand, sources with knowledge of the matter told Bloomberg in September.

India aims to be a refining hub in Asia as it is boosting refining capacity and expects to continue relying on fossil fuels until at least 2040, according to Indian Petroleum Minister Hardeep Singh Puri.

“Our existing refineries will increase in terms of capacity and they will also become regional hubs in terms of providing to other countries,” the minister told Reuters last month.

India will drive up to 35% of global energy demand growth over the next 20 years, Puri said at the Gastech conference in Houston earlier this year.