December 10, 2018: RIL’s Pre-emptive Surgical Strike? Indian politics suffers from the Singur Syndrome. The farmers’ protest in this rural outpost in West Bengal’s Hoogly district against acquisition of their land for Ratan Tata’s car project ruined the Left Front government led by the Communists. The Singur syndrome is at work in Maharashtra stalling the 60 MMTPA refinery in which Saudi Aramco and ADNOC have taken 50 per cent equity stake with the remaining 50 per cent going to the Indian PSUs led by Indian Oil Corporation. The Modi government cannot afford the project to collapse for want of a location on the West coast. Even as refinery experts began to speculate about a location on the Gujarat coast where RIL owns two refineries with a total capacity of 68.2 MTPA, media began speculating about RIL’s plan to expand the refining capacity by 50 per cent. It is not an announcement by the company. There could be an interesting story behind it. Click Free Access column Petro Intelligence for details.