Indian Petrochemicals Ethylene Expansions Bring Reliance Group Total Capacity to Two Million Tons

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Researched by Industrialinfo.com (Industrial Information Resources, Incorporated; Houston, Texas). The expansion of Indian Petrochemicals (IPCL) (Vadodara, India) ethylene cracker capacity by 100,000 tons per annum at Gandhar in Gujarat province will bring the total plant capacity to 400,000 tons and the company’s total ethylene capacity to between 950,000 and one million tons per annum. This total includes IPCL's two crackers at Vadodara and Nagothane in Maharashtra.

The capacity expansion at Gandhar will come from the addition of a fifth gas-cracking furnace to the four already producing at the plant. Work on the project began in January and is scheduled for completion in 2006. IPCL has not given details of the investment involved.

The production capacity at the Vadodara cracker is being expanded by 40,000 tons to an annual capacity of 170,000 to 180,000 tons. The current capacity at Nagothane is 400,000 tons per annum.

Seventy-five million dollars will be invested by IPCL in the expansion of other product capacities through 2009. On the ‘probable’ list of expansions is the monoethylene glycol facility at Gandhar to 188,000 tons, which represents an increase in capacity of 157%. Caustic soda capacity will be increases by 25%, to 170,000 tons, and polyvinyl chloride production capacity will be increased to 135,000 tons.

In 2004, it was announced by Reliance Industries (BOMBAY:REL) (Bombay India) that IPCL would invest about $215 million to construct its own standalone 500,000 ton per annum mono ethylene glycol (MEG) cracker plant at the Gandhar site. For related news item see – May 7, 2004 – India Planning to Implement Mega Petrochem Projects in Move up Global Capacity Rankings cracker plant.

Reliance Industries (RIL) took over IPCL in 2002, with a holding of 46%, and the Indian government holds 34% of the company. RIL is expanding its own cracker capacity from 750,000 tons to one million tons, and together with the expanded IPCL totals will give the whole group a cracker capacity of about two million tons per annum. RIL is planning to see its petrochemical product production increase from the current 12.4 million tons per annum to fifteen million tons through 2008.

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