ONGC Mangalore Investing $3.2 Billion in Aromatics, Refinery Expansion

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--India's ONGC Mangalore Petrochemicals Limited is calling for expressions of interest from Indian and foreign companies in connection with the $1.2 billion aromatics complex, which is to be constructed at the Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Limited (MRPL) site at Mangalore. The state's Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) will hold 46% of the project, and MPRL, an ONGC subsidiary, will hold 3%.

The expressions of interest cover the assembly of a PTA plant ensuring upliftment of paraxylene output from ONGC Mangalore Petrochemicals (OMPL) to 920,000 tons per annum (TPA); the assembly of any other downstream plants ensuring upliftment of benzene from OMPL to 140,000 TPA; and the upliftment of paraxylene and benzene from OMPL on a long-term basis for further processing for trading purposes. Two hundred seventy-eight acres have been acquired for the project site.

Feedstock of naphtha and reformate for the project will be supplied by MRPL, which is scheduled for commissioning by the end of 2010. Project management consultants and process licensors are being selected. MRPL will expand naphtha production to 15 million TPA from the current 9.69 million TPA.

MRPL is also investing just under $2 billion to raise the capacity of its refinery to 15 million TPA (320,000 barrels per day) by 2010. The refinery has just completed an isomerization unit, which will help it produce Euro-IV grade gasoline in early 2008. It will be the first Indian refiner to produce this grade of fuel.

The two projects are part of ONGC's $8.75 billion investment in the Mangalore Special Economic Zone that will house a new 320,000-barrel-per-day refinery, power generation units and petrochemical plants. M-SEZ will be the first Petroleum, Chemicals and Petrochemicals Investment region in India.

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