Chandigarh, Sep 9 - HPCL-Mittal Energy Ltd (HMEL), a joint venture between the state-owned Hindustan Petroleum Corp and Mittal Energy Investment of Singapore, Wednesday said the carriage capacity of the Sri Guru Gobind Singh oil refinery's Gujarat-Bathinda pipeline is being doubled.

This will make the upcoming complex at Bathinda the biggest petrochemical hub in Asia, it said.

HMEL officials told the Punjab government that the pipeline's annual carriage capacity, initially envisaged at 9,000 million tonnes, is being doubled to 18,000 million tonnes.

'This was being done to expand the refinery into Asia's biggest petrochemical hub', HMEL officials said.

HMEL chairman Arun Balakrishnan and chief executive Prabh Das Wednesday met Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and other top officials of the state government here.

Das said apart from the Rs.18,900 crore initial outlay for the refinery, an additional Rs.