Essar Oil, India's second largest private refiner, has been conferred with the prestigious "Refinery of the Year Award" 2011 by the Petroleum Federation (PetroFed),in recognition of its impressive performance in the Indian refining sector last year.

The award was received by Mr. C.Manoharan, Director - Refinery, Essar Oil,from the Honourable Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Mr. S.Jaipal Reddy during the annual Petroleum Federation Oil and Gas industry awards for 2011 event held in New Delhi recently.

This award acknowledges production and operational efficiencies in performance in the refining and petroleum in India during fiscal 2010-11. The company has won a trophy and a citation for excellence in its refining performance.

"Essar Oil's Vadinar refinery today accounts for 10 percent of India's total refining capacity. We are humbled by this recognition by PetroFed. It is our endeavor to create value for customers in the oil and gas sector, through world-class operating standards and state-of-the-art technology," said LK Gupta, MD & CEO, Essar Oil.

The Refinery of the Year category was one of the nine categories at the PetroFed awards, an apex hydrocarbon industry association representing companies from India's public and private companies in oil and gas sector.

Just last week Essar Oil completed its Refinery Optimisation Projectfour months ahead of schedule, taking the capacity of Vadinarrefinery to 20 MMTPA or 405,000 barrels per day, making it India's second largest single location refinery.In March, Essar Oil completed the Refinery Expansion Project to raise its nameplate capacity to 18MMTPA from 10.5 MMTPA, and complexity to 11.8. Essar Oil has invested approx. Rs 24,000 croreat its Vadinar Refinery complex.