What was the number of oil refineries in Madhya Pradesh in 2024?
- (a)Three
- (b)One
- (c)Four
- (d)Two
Correct — B, one. Madhya Pradesh has exactly one oil refinery: the Bina Refinery at Agasod, near Bina town in Sagar district. It was built by Bharat Oman Refineries Limited (BORL), a joint venture of Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL) and Oman Oil Company, was commissioned in 2011, and has a capacity of 7.8 million tonnes per annum. BORL was merged into BPCL in 2022, so the plant is today a BPCL refinery. No second refinery existed in the state in 2024 — the announced expansion at Bina (an ethylene cracker and petrochemical complex) is an addition to the same site, not a new refinery.
- (a)Three — Madhya Pradesh has no crude oil production of its own and only one refining site. Multi-refinery clusters are elsewhere — Gujarat and Assam — not in Madhya Pradesh.
- (c)Four — Far too many for a landlocked state that runs entirely on crude piped in from the coast. Four is the sort of count associated with Assam's refinery group (Digboi, Guwahati, Bongaigaon, Numaligarh), not with Madhya Pradesh.
- (d)Two — The tempting near-miss. Students count the Bina refinery plus its announced petrochemical/cracker expansion, or plus a proposed project, as a second unit. Expansion of an existing refinery does not create a new refinery — the state's count stayed at one.
A refinery is where crude oil is separated and processed into petrol, diesel, LPG, naphtha and other products. India's refineries cluster near the coast (imported crude lands there) or near domestic oilfields. Madhya Pradesh has neither a coastline nor oilfields, so its single refinery at Bina is a deliberate inland exception: crude is unloaded at the Vadinar terminal on the Gujarat coast and pushed to Bina through a dedicated long-distance crude pipeline. Bina was chosen to serve the fuel demand of central and northern India, cutting the freight cost of moving finished products inland.
MPPSC likes simple counting questions about state infrastructure — number of refineries, airports, tiger reserves, thermal plants. The way to be safe is to hold the actual name, not the number: if you can name only Bina, the answer is one. Guessing 'two' because a big expansion was in the news is exactly the trap the options are built around.
- Madhya Pradesh's only oil refinery is at Agasod, near Bina, in Sagar district.
- It was set up by Bharat Oman Refineries Ltd (BORL), a BPCL–Oman Oil joint venture; BORL was merged into BPCL in 2022.
- Capacity: 7.8 million tonnes per annum; the refinery was commissioned in 2011.
- Crude reaches this landlocked refinery through a dedicated pipeline from the Vadinar terminal on the Gujarat coast.
- BPCL has approved a large petrochemical expansion at the same Bina site (an ethylene cracker complex) — an expansion of the existing refinery, not a second refinery.
- Counting an announced expansion or a proposed project as a separate refinery
- Assuming a large state must have several refineries — refinery location follows crude logistics, not state size
- Confusing the operator's identity over time: BORL (BPCL–Oman Oil JV) became BPCL after the 2022 merger
MPPSC asks it as a count ('how many refineries in MP') or as a locator ('the Bina refinery is in which district'). UPSC almost never asks a state count — it asks which company operates a refinery, which state has the oldest refinery, or frames refining inside a statement question on the petroleum sector.
Consider the following statements: 1. NTPC is the largest power utility in India. 2. ONGC accounts for half of the LPG production in India. 3. Indian Oil Corporation operates all the oil refineries in India. 4. The Indian Ordinance Factory is the largest departmentally run industrial undertaking in the country. Which of these statements is/are correct?
- (a) 1 only
- (b) 2 and 3
- (c) 2, 3 and 4
- (d) 1 and 4
Answer(d) 1 and 4
Statement 3 tests the same knowledge base — who owns and runs India's refineries. Knowing that refineries are spread across IOCL, BPCL, HPCL, ONGC and private players (BPCL at Bina, in this case) is what makes both questions answerable.
Where is the Tatipaka Oil Refinery located?
- (a) Tamil Nadu
- (b) Gujarat
- (c) Andhra Pradesh
- (d) Maharashtra
Answer(c) Andhra Pradesh
The same refinery-map recall two years earlier — MPPSC repeatedly asks students to place India's refineries by state, whether by naming one (Tatipaka) or by counting them (Madhya Pradesh).
- practice — not a real PYQ
The Bina oil refinery of Madhya Pradesh is located in which district?
- (a)Sagar
- (b)Vidisha
- (c)Betul
- (d)Rewa
Answer(a) Sagar — the refinery stands at Agasod village near Bina town, Sagar district.
- practice — not a real PYQ
India's oldest operating oil refinery is located at:
- (a)Digboi
- (b)Koyali
- (c)Barauni
- (d)Mathura
Answer(a) Digboi in Assam — commissioned in 1901, it is India's oldest refinery still in operation.