Indian Oil Corporation on Friday said it plans to invest over Rs 4 lakh crore (trillion) in this decade to expand its oil refining and petrochemical businesses as well as in energy transition projects.

IndianOil will invest Rs 1 lakh crore in expanding capacity to refine and turn crude oil into fuel and a staggering Rs 2.4 lakh crore in projects that will help it achieve net-zero carbon emissions from its operations, IOC chairman Shrikant Madhav Vaidya said.

The IOC board, he said, has accorded Stage-1 approval to set up the Paradip petrochemical complex in Odisha at an estimated cost of over Rs 61,000 crore. This will be IOC’s single largest investment at a location.

“We are investing over Rs 1 lakh crore for expanding your company’s refining capacity by about 33 per cent to reach almost 107 million tonnes per annum soon,” he said. The expansion includes a new 9-million tonnes-per-annum oil refinery at Nagapattinam in Tamil Nadu.

The company is collaborating with Italy’s Snam to explore the possibility of converting the existing natural gas pipelines for hydrogen transportation.

These investments will help the company continue to meet the rising energy needs of a fast-expanding economy while also treading on the path of the energy transition, he told the shareholders at the company’s annual general meeting.

IOC is leveraging varied energy pathways that will establish it “as a 360-degree energy company,” he said. “We are well-aligned with the need to ensure equitable energy access and sustainable transition.”

The PSU which controls over 40 per cent of India’s fuel market and is the largest oil refiner has set 2046 as the target date for net-zero carbon emissions.

“Our well-crafted blueprint, with a staggered investment plan of about Rs 2.4 lakh crore or $30 billion, will take us towards the net-zero destination,” he said.

These investments will be in producing green hydrogen to replace one currently used in refineries that come from fossil fuels, renewable energy capacity addition, biofuels and carbon offsetting.

Its energy transition plans also include an EV charging network and infrastructure to enable electric vehicles to swap chargeable batteries.