Nov. 16 (Bloomberg) -- Essar Oil Ltd., India's newest refiner, will spend about $6 billion to more than triple plant capacity to benefit from a global shortage that helped crude oil prices surge to a record.

The board approved selling global depositary shares to the company's owners to raise as much as $2 billion, or 200 rupees a share, and said it no longer plans to delist the stock, according to an e-mailed release from the company.

Essar, Reliance Industries Ltd., India's biggest company, and Indian Oil Corp. will help increase the nation's ability to process crude oil into fuels by 92 million tons a year by 2012 from 148.97 million tons now, boosting exports, Dinsha Patel, junior minister for oil and gas, said Aug. 16. India had a surplus of 20.12 million tons of fuels in the year ended March 31, of which diesel accounted for more than half, he said.

The capacity of Essar Oil will increase to 34 million metric tons a year, or 680,000 barrels a day, from 10.5 million tons now. Essar Oil shares rose 34.7 rupees, or 22 percent, to 192.35 at the 3:30 p.m. local time close on the Bombay Stock Exchange.

The Essar Group, which has businesses as varied as steel, shipping and refineries, will seek to buy back Essar Oil shares on both the Bombay Stock Exchange and the National Stock Exchange, it said on Jan. 30.

Reliance Petroleum Ltd., a unit of Reliance Industries, is building a 580,000 barrel-a-day refinery adjacent to a 660,000 barrel-a-day plant owned by its parent. Once complete, Reliance will own the world's biggest refinery, according to the parent. The plant is expected to be ready by 2008.

Indian Oil and Bharat Petroleum Corp., the third-biggest state-owned refiner, are among others planning expansions.

To contact the reporters on this story: Shailendra Bhatnagar in New Delhi at sbhatnagar3@bloomberg.net; Manash Goswami in New Delhi at mgoswami@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: November 16, 2007 08:29 EST