Cross-company synergy boosts IndianOil Northeast crude flow by 15%: Arvind Kumar, Director (Refineries), IndianOil

Around the world, DRA deployment has helped pipeline operators defer capital expenditure, optimise energy consumption and improve asset utilisation

A Make-in-India Molecule That Changed the Equation

Pipeline transportation is widely regarded as the most energy-efficient means of moving large volumes of hydrocarbons over long distances, yet every barrel of oil moving through a long-distance pipeline fights an invisible adversary: friction. As hydrocarbons surge through steel conduits, turbulent eddies bleed away hydraulic energy — forcing operators to either pump harder or settle for less throughput (flow rate). Globally, the answer has been Drag Reducing Additives (DRAs) — ultra-high molecular weight poly(alpha-olefin)-based formulations that tame turbulence at the molecular level, enabling significantly greater volumes to move at the same energy input, without any new infrastructure.

Around the world, DRA deployment has helped pipeline operators defer capital expenditure, optimise energy consumption and improve asset utilisation. In an era of tightening investment cycles and rising sustainability expectations, extracting greater value from existing infrastructure has become an operational imperative.

Fig. 1 Flow Dynamics Before and After DRA Injection 

For decades, however, this technology was tightly held by a handful of global suppliers — Lubrizol, Baker Hughes, Flowchem — at considerable cost and strategic vulnerability to Indian operators. 

That changed when IndianOil R&D set out to develop a homegrown equivalent. The challenge was formidable: engineering polymers with molecular weights in the 10–20 million Dalton range, designing a solvent-free reaction pathway, and building a stable industry-ready product from scratch. 

The result was XtraFlo DRA — India’s first complete end-to-end DRA manufacturing capability, backed by patents on a novel catalyst, a new polymerisation process, and an indigenous formulation route.

Backed by robust performance, this DRA moved swiftly from innovation to implementation—delivering results across IndianOil’s network, earning confidence across industries, and including recent exports to Saudi Aramco, signalling growing international acceptance of this indigenous technology. 

The Bottleneck That Would Not Yield

The crude oil corridor from Paradip to IndianOil’s North-East (NE) refineries at Bongaigaon and Guwahati is a long and demanding route. Imported crude is received at Paradip port, which travels through the Paradip–Haldia–Barauni Oil Pipeline (PHBPL), crossing the tidal flats of Odisha, the river deltas of Bengal, and the wide Gangetic plains of Bihar — before entering Oil India Limited’s (OIL) 3 MMTPA pipeline at Barauni, Bihar for the final leg through Assam. 

For years, that last stretch had been the weak link. When the line hit its hydraulic ceiling, nearly 0.6 million tonnes of crude annually had to be diverted to rail — slow, expensive, with transit losses and hostage to monsoon disruption. 

Sustaining NE refinery operations required continuous co-ordination across IndianOil's Marketing, Pipelines and Refinery teams to secure rake availability and manage crude movements. 

With crude movement constraints increasingly affecting logistics efficiency and supply reliability, IndianOil began exploring options to enhance throughput, reduce costs and improve operational resilience without creating new infrastructure.

The opportunity emerged through a collaborative effort involving IndianOil's Pipelines, R&D, Marketing and Refinery teams, together with OIL, to re-examine long-held assumptions around line capacity and unlock latent potential within the existing system.

Structured dialogues were promptly initiated with the R&D Division, Marketing team and OIL to take the idea forward in a focused and systematic manner.

Crossing the Boundary Together

What followed was more than an engineering exercise. 

Deploying our DRA in OIL’s network had never been attempted. The two systems were fundamentally different — crude characteristics, temperature profiles, pump combinations, elevation gradients, operating philosophies varied considerably.

Yet the opportunity was too consequential to ignore.

A joint task force took shape: hydraulic specialists, operations engineers, planners, and R&D chemists, working across organisational lines toward a single goal.

The team left nothing to assumption. Historical flow curves, elevation maps, pump head availability at Barauni, Dumar, and Sonapur, pressure drop profiles, and seasonal variation patterns — all were analysed in depth. 

R&D chemists reformulated the polymer blend twice to align with OIL’s specific crude. Injection skids were designed and calibrated. Remote monitoring sensors were aligned. Operations teams rehearsed dosing sequences and emergency protocols.

The Night the Flowmeter Moved

The first controlled trial began quietly at Dumar Pump Station in Bihar. Engineers wiped condensation off gauges as the initial dose of DRA entered the line. For a few tense minutes — nothing. Then the Barauni control room registered a rise. 

Flow rates began increasing, confirming that the perceived hydraulic ceiling of the pipeline could, in fact, be pushed further through scientific intervention rather than physical expansion.

Flow climbed from around 440 m³/hr to 480 m³/hr.

The September trial expanded injection to three stations simultaneously — Barauni, Dumar, and Sonapur — and flow touched nearly 500 m³/hr. The result: a 15% capacity increase, lifting OIL’s pipeline throughput from 3.0 MMTPA to 3.45 MMTPA. Rail rakes required fell from 24 per month to 9. Estimated savings: Rs. 1.6 crore per month. Crude supply to Bongaigaon and Guwahati Refineries stabilised in a way that those managing the operations had not seen in years. 

Fig. 2 Unlocking Hidden Capacity: Throughput Gains and Logistics Savings Through DRA Deployment 

Key Outcomes

People Behind the Numbers

The corridor from Paradip to Guwahati does not pass through forgiving geography. Rivers swell without warning. Floodplains turn impassable. During one heavy spell, a field crew at Sonapur worked under improvised tarpaulin covers to keep equipment dry while validating injection parameters. On another night, a scientist in our R&D at Faridabad cross-checked laboratory readings against live field data, ringing the site every hour to fine-tune dosage. These are not the moments captured in project reports — but they are the moments that determined the outcome.

The success of this initiative ultimately rested not only on technology, but on the willingness of teams from different disciplines and organisations to trust one another, share expertise and remain focused on a common objective.

Fig 3 – IndianOil Engineers monitoring DRA performance 

What This Means for IndianOil and for India

The achievement belongs to both organisations equally. But it points toward something larger. This initiative embodies what IndianOil stands for — the belief that collaboration and innovation are not competing priorities but natural partners. Our teams demonstrated that a complex, multi-variable challenge across two organisations can be resolved by breaking organisational silos and building collaborative bridges in pursuit of a shared purpose. The synergy across Pipelines, R&D, Refineries, Marketing, and OIL was not incidental — it was the solution.

Capacity was created without a metre of new steel. World-class performance was delivered by homegrown science. And a bottleneck that had constrained crude movement to North-East refineries for years was successfully addressed through innovation, persistence and partnership.

As crude now moves faster beneath the forests of Assam and the fertile plains of Bihar, it carries a quiet message that this industry would do well to remember: India’s energy future will be built not by individual organisations working in isolation, but by partners who trust each other enough to share data, question assumptions, and act on a common vision.

What began as an indigenous response to a strategic vulnerability has evolved into a benchmark for how Indian innovation can solve operational challenges, strengthen energy security and create globally relevant technologies.