Public sector Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL) may take over Cuddalore-based Nagarjuna Oil Corporation Ltd (NOCL), whose board of directors had earlier rejected selling off the company to Singapore-based Netoil. To facilitate HPCL takeover of NOCL, the Prime Minister's Office is said to have already held two rounds of the meeting of all stakeholders. One of these meetings, held this week, is said to have been presided over by NaMo himself. Indianmandarins has learned that the 6 million tonne NOCL project is 60% complete. So it may make immense sense for cash-rich HPCL to invest in this project because an investment into a green-field site takes anywhere from 7 to 8 years to complete. Bedsides, NOCL has enough dispute-free land around the site to expand the refinery capacity to 30 million tonnes. Further, the project is located barely 50 KMs away from the truck filling pipelines. Since Tamil Nadu and the southern region are fast-developing areas, they would become oil-deficit if the project is not taken up in the right earnest. In view of the immense feasibility of the project, financial arrangements are being worked out with HPCL, SBI Capital Market, IDBI, and TN government. As reported by Indianmandarins a few days back, HPCL has already been thinking in terms of capacity expansion. If it gets control of NOCL as planned, its expansion plan would be boosted. By M K Shukla (Editor)