Numaligarh Refinery Expansion

The Numaligarh Refinery in Assam's Golaghat district is one of the North-East's industrial anchors, and it is in the middle of a transformation: the Numaligarh Refinery Expansion Project (NREP) is tripling its capacity from 3 to 9 million tonnes per year, at an estimated cost of around ₹33,901 crore — one of the largest single industrial investments the region has seen. On-ground progress had passed roughly 60% by 2025, with the new capacity beginning to come on stream from around December 2025.

The expansion is far more than a bigger refinery. To feed it, a 1,640-km crude-oil pipeline is being laid all the way from Paradip on the Odisha coast to Numaligarh — one of India's longest — solving the landlocked refinery's crude-supply problem, while a product pipeline runs from Numaligarh to a marketing terminal at Siliguri. From there, and via the India–Bangladesh Friendship Pipeline completed in 2022, Numaligarh is positioned to export refined fuel to Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan and Myanmar, making it an energy hub for the whole eastern neighbourhood. NRL has even opened its first overseas office in Bangladesh.

Numaligarh is also a leader in green energy. Its flagship bamboo-based bio-refinery — a carbon-neutral plant turning the North-East's abundant bamboo into second-generation ethanol and bio-chemicals — is among the first of its kind in the world, and is under commissioning. It ties the refinery directly to the rural bamboo economy, giving farmers a new market while advancing India's biofuel goals.

Together, the tripling of capacity, the cross-country pipelines, the export orientation and the bamboo bio-refinery make Numaligarh a model of what industrialisation in the Northeast can look like: large-scale, export-facing and, unusually, green. It anchors an energy corridor that increasingly reaches beyond India's borders.