Indian Oil Plans Derivatives at Panipat, Advances Paradip
New Delhi   23-Feb-2009
IndianOil, is planning to further develop its Panipat, India petrochemical complex and has selected technologies for a separate, previously announced project at Paradip, India, CW has learned. IndianOil is due to complete a previously announced 850,000-m.t./year, Lummus-process naphtha cracker and two polyolefin plants at Panipat by next December, followed by a third polyolefin unit and an ethylene glycol (EG) plant in early 2010, and it has decided to invest further by building several downstream units at the site, S. Mitra, general manager/petrochemicals at IndianOil tells CW. The downstream plants will use C4 and C5 fractions from the cracker, and the cracker’s initial capacity will be expanded by 25%, says Mitra, who spoke with CW at the PlastIndia exhibition, held recently in New Delhi. IndianOil will likely invest an estimated $1.2 billion to build the Panipat downstream plants, which will produce butenes, isobutylene, butyl rubber, isoprene, and polyisoprene, as well as methyl methacrylate (MMA), maleic anhydride (MA), and butanediol, Mitra says. A decision in principle on the projects is expected by the end of this year with phased-in completion during 2014-16, he says. The Panipat downstream complex is expected to produce 100,000 m.t./year of butyl rubber; 80,000 m.t./year of MMA; 120,000 m.t./year of MA; and 80,000 m.t.-100,000 m.t./year of polyisoprene, Mitra says. IndianOil has already approved the expansion of the cracker’s cold end, and it plans to add one furnace, which will lift capacity to 1.1 million m.t./year of ethylene by 2012, he adds. The Panipat complex will be IndianOil’s first major petchem manufacturing facility. The expected full start up of the facility by early next year follows a “slippage” of a few months, Mitra says. The cracker, together with a 650,000-m.t./year polypropylene (PP) plant and a 300,000-m.t./year high-density polyethylene unit, both based on LyondellBasell technology, are on track for completion by end of this year. They will be followed early next year by a 350,000-m.t./year, Sclairtech-process swing polyethylene facility and a Scientific Design-technology, 325,000-m.t./year EG unit. The Paradip petchem complex will be built at the site of a 15-million m.t./year refinery that IndianOil is scheduled to complete in the first quarter of 2012. The petchem complex will be completed in 2013, one year later than originally planned. It will comprise units producing 1.2 million m.t./year of para -xylene; 700,000 m.t./year of PP; and 600,000 m.t./year of styrene. UOP will provide its p -xylene process, LyondellBasell its Spheripol PP technology, and Lummus its styrene process, Mitra says. IndianOil is also in the initial phases of a previously announced joint venture with Gail India (New Delhi) to build a petchem complex at Barauni, India, and IndianOil will become the anchor investor at a site at Haldia, India that is expected to become one of the country’s three previously announced Petroleum, Chemical, and Petrochemical Investment Regions. Meanwhile, IndianOil is planning p- xylene and purified terephthalic acid plants next to an existing refinery at Koyali, India. Separately, during the next few months IndianOil will name its partners in a previously announced tripartite 120,000-m.t./year styrene butadiene rubber (SBR) jv at Panipat. It will be India’s first SBR unit and is likely to cost $160 million with completion slated by 2012, Mitra says.