L&T’s Hydrocarbon Onshore business has marked a significant project milestone with the successful feed-in of the world’s first LC-Max Residue Upgradation Facility (RUF) at Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd’s Visakh Refinery in Andhra Pradesh. The facility has a designed capacity of 3.55 million metric tonnes per annum (MMTPA).
With commissioning completed, the unit has begun processing live feedstock—vacuum residue sourced from the existing refinery—and is now producing high-value petroleum products. The milestone was achieved in the presence of senior officials from HPCL, process licensor CLG, and project management consultant Engineers India Limited (EIL), underscoring its importance for India’s refining sector.
Executed by L&T on an EPC turnkey basis, the RUF is the most complex process unit under HPCL’s Visakh Refinery Modernisation Project. The project forms a critical part of the National Energy Self-Reliance Programme, aimed at maximising value recovery from heavy residue streams.
The state-of-the-art facility enables the production of fuels compliant with stringent BS-VI emission norms while significantly improving the yield and value of domestically processed crude oil. It also introduces multiple technologies being deployed for the first time in Indian refineries, including ebullating pumps, Grayloc flanges, pressure let-down stations, and an integrated pitch solidification and handling system.
Commenting on the achievement, Subramanian Sarma, Deputy Managing Director and President, L&T, said, “The successful commissioning of the world’s first LC-Max Residue Upgradation Facility reflects L&T’s capability to deliver highly complex projects with precision and innovation. This project sets new benchmarks in execution, safety, quality, and technology adoption.”
Project execution faced significant challenges, including critical construction phases during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, global supply chain disruptions, geopolitical uncertainties, and severe space constraints within a live brownfield refinery located in the heart of Visakhapatnam.
To address these constraints, L&T adopted advanced construction strategies with a strong focus on off-site fabrication. More than 50 per cent of the structural steel and piping work was modularised into 135 pre-assembled modules, some extending up to 35 metres in length and weighing between 100 and 700 metric tonnes. These modules were fabricated at L&T’s manufacturing facilities across India and transported for installation.
The project involved the installation of over 750 equipment items, including 230 over-dimensional consignments moved through city routes, along with extensive piping and electrical cabling works. In a first for an Indian refinery project, over half of the civil construction—covering all three substation buildings—was executed using precast construction methods.
L&T delivered the project with an outstanding safety record, logging 58 million safe man-hours while adhering to rigorous global quality standards. The achievement reinforces L&T’s engineering capabilities and its track record of executing large, technically demanding projects under challenging conditions.
