State-run oil and gas explorers ONGC plans to complete merger of its refining subsidiary Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd (MRPL)with recently acquired Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd (HPCL) in next financial year to align its upstream and downstream operations into two verticals being more focus into respective businesses.

Sources said that the process of merging ONGC's two oil refining subsidiaries, HPCL and MRPL, will be started immediately after the company completes merging ONGC Mangalore Petrochemical Ltd (OMPL) with MRPL by June 2021.

"Once OMPL-MRPL merger is completed, the second round of merger would be kicked off immediately so that ONGCs operations is given two distinct identities in the form of separate upstream and downstream operations," said official sources.

The board of MRPL on October 19 has approved acquisition of 49 per cent stake in OMPL from ONGC. This has paved the way for merging OMPL with MRPL that is expected to be completed in next 6-8 months time. Once this is done, the next stage of merging MRPL  with HPCL will begin.

OMPL, a subsidiary of MRPL, is a joint venture between ONGC and MRPL, set up for value addition of excess naphtha and aromatic streams available from MRPL refinery. The complex is the largest single stream unit in Asia to produce 914 KTPA Para-xylene and 283 KTPA Benzene.

MRPL is a subsidiary of ONGC and schedule 'A' Miniratna, Central Public Sector Enterprise (CPSE) under the Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas. As of 30 September 2020, ONGC held 71.63 per cent and HPCL held 16.96 per cent stake in MRPL.