NANAVATY: Polymer demand will soar.

MEHTA: Shell has India on its mind.

bined capacity for less than 3 million m.t./ year and any shortfall is made up by imports of ethylene and derivatives from the Mideast and, to a lesser extent, eastern Asia, Mehta says. Petchem demand is expected to grow 9%-10%/year in India, just ahead of GDP, he says. The market in India for ethylene equivalent—comprising mainly PE, styrene, and EG—is tight, and the market for PP is balanced to slightly long, he says. Ethylene, EG, PE, and styrene are expected to remain in short supply in the medium term but a huge expansion by Reliance at Jamnagar

is expected to cover growing PP demand. Reliance is adding 1 million m.t./year of PP capacity at Jamnagar.

Several Indian firms have announced major investment plans that will increase ethylene supply in the longer term (table, p. 21). However, the announced projects have little foreign participation mainly because India has no cheap petchem feedstocks to attract overseas investors. Reliance, HPL, and Gail have expansion plans under way, and Indian Oil and ONGC are entering the market by building their first, world-scale petchem complexes.

Indian Oil plans to raise significantly the share of its sales generated by petchems. The company is expected to complete construction of an 850,000-m.t./year naphtha cracker and two polyolefin plants at Panipat next December, followed by an additional polyolefin unit and an EG plant early next year, says S. Mitra, general manager/petro-chemicals at Indian Oil. The company plans to develop the Panipat complex further and invest in a separate petchem complex at Paradip (CW, Feb. 23, p. 23). Indian Oil is

also in the initial phases of a jv with Gail to build a petchem complex at Barauni, as well as becoming the anchor investor at the Haldia PCPIR. Meanwhile, the company is planning para-xylene and PTA plants next to an existing refinery at Koyali.

ONGC’s Opal project at the Dahej PCPIR is being built on a fast-track basis and is expected to cost $3.1 billion (CW, Jan. 12, p. 20). The complex will be based on a dual-feed cracker with capacity for 1. 1 million m.t./year of ethylene and 400,000 m.t./ year of propylene. It will consume naphtha supplied from ONGC’s refineries at Hazira and Uran, and ethane and propane supplied from a liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal at Dahej. LNG is shipped to the terminal from Qatar. The complex will provide feedstock to three planned polyolefin units including a two-line, 1.08-million m.t./year swing plant producing linear low-density PE or high-density PE, and a 400,000-m.t./ year PP unit. ONGC and other Indian investors are expected to hold a 50% stake in Opal and an overseas partner is expected to take 25%. The rest is expected to come

 

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