Petrochemicals

India is amongst the fastest growing petrochemicals markets in the world. Taking this into consideration and to enhance its downstream integration, Indian Oil is focusing on increasing its presence in the domestic petrochemicals sector besides the overseas markets through systematic expansion of customer base and innovative supply logistics.

Petrochemicals have been identified as a prime driver of future growth by IndianOil. The Corporation is envisaging an investment of Rs 30,000 crore in the petrochemicals business in the next few years. These projects will utilise product streams from the existing refineries of IndianOil, thereby achieving better exploitation of the hydrocarbon value chain.

Beginning with a low-investment, high-value projects such as Methyl Tertiary Butyl Ether (MTBE) and Butene-1 at Gujarat Refinery, Vadodara, IndianOil has set up a world-scale Linear Alkyl Benzene (LAB) plant at Gujarat Refinery and an integrated Paraxylene/Purified Terephthalic Acid (PX/PTA) plant at Panipat. A Naphtha Cracker complex with downstream polymer units is also in operation at Panipat.

These initiatives are designed to catapult IndianOil among the top three petrochemicals players in Southeast Asia in the long term.

In order to penetrate the petrochemicals market effectively, a separate Strategic Business Unit (SBU) has been created in IndianOil for marketing of petrochemicals. This SBU has five exclusive sub-groups, classified product wise (LAB, PTA, Polymers) and function wise (Logistics & Exports), in addition to regional/field set-ups to offer reliable customer service. This SBU has already established IndianOil's LAB business both in India and abroad. Today, IndianOil is a major supplier to the key players in the detergent industry, both national and international. Similarly, in PTA business, all major domestic customers are catered to by IndianOil. A robust logistics model has been the key to IndianOil's success story and facilities have been put in place for seamless product dispatches to customers by rail, road and sea.

Mega Plants:

Linear Alkyl Benzene (LAB) plant, Gujarat Refinery:

IndianOil made its big-ticket entry into petrochemicals with the commissioning of the country’s largest Linear Alkyl Benzene (LAB) plant at Gujarat Refinery in August 2004. It is also the largest grassroots single train Kerosene-to-LAB unit in the world, with an installed capacity of 1,20,000 metric tonnes per annum (MTPA). Currently, two grades of LAB – high molecular weight and low molecular weight – are being produced for manufacture of environment friendly biodegradable detergents. The quality of the LAB produced here has found wide acceptance in the domestic and overseas markets.

Built at a cost of Rs. 1,248 crore and commissioned in a record 24 months’ time, the plant produces superior quality LAB for manufacturing environment-friendly biodegradable detergents. The key raw materials for the plant, catering to domestic as well as export market requirements meeting the latest and most stringent quality standards, are Kerosene and Benzene produced at Koyali Refinery.

The LAB unit at Gujarat Refinery achieved 102.8% capacity utilization during the year 2009-2010. LAB sales touched 126 TMT including export of 19 TMT to 19 countries during the year 2009-10.

Paraxylene/Purified Terephthalic Acid (PX/PTA), Panipat:

The most technologically advanced plant in the country, the PX/PTA plant marks IndianOil’s major step towards forward integration in the hydrocarbon value chain by manufacturing Paraxylene (PX) from captive Naphtha and thereafter, converting it into Purified Terephthalic Acid (PTA). The integrated Paraxylene/Purified Terephthallic Acid (PX/PTA) complex was built at a cost of Rs. 5,104 crore within the Panipat Refinery in Haryana.

The PTA Plant is the single largest unit in India with a world-scale capacity of 5,53,000 MTPA, achieving economy of scale. The process package for the PTA plant was prepared by erstwhile M/s Dupont, UK (now M/s. Invista) and that of the Paraxylene Unit was prepared by M/s UOP, USA. M/s EIL and M/s Toyo Engineering were the Project Management Consultants (PMC) for executing the PTA and PX respectively.

The Paraxylene plant is designed to process 5,00,000 MTPA of heart-cut Naphtha to produce about 3,60,000 MTPA of PX. Naphtha is sourced from IndianOil’s Panipat and Mathura refineries, for which Naphtha splitter units are set up at the respective refineries. The PTA unit produces 5,53,000 MTPA of Purified Terephthalic Acid from Paraxylene.

Naphtha Cracker Plant, Panipat:

The world-class Naphtha Cracker at Panipat, built at a cost of Rs 14,400 crore, is the largest operating cracker capacity in India.

The feed for the unit is sourced internally from IndianOil's Koyali, Panipat and Mathura refineries. The Naphtha Cracker comprises of the following downstream units - Polypropylene (capacity: 600,000 tonnes), High Density Polyethylene (HDPE) (dedicated capacity: 300,000 tonnes) and Linear Low Density Poly Ethylene (LLDPE) (350,000 tonnes Swing unit with HDPE), Mono Ethylene Glycol(MEG) plant (capacity: 325,000 tonnes).

The cracker will produce over 800,000 tonnes per annum of ethylene, 600,000 tonnes per annum of Propylene, 125,000 tonnes per annum of Benzene, and other products viz., LPG, Pyrolysis Fuel Oil, components of Gasoline and Diesel.

The Polypropylene (PP) unit is designed to produce high quality and high value niche grades including high speed Bi-axially Oriented Polypropylene (BOPP) (used for food packaging and laminations), high clarity random co-polymers (used for food containers and thin walled products) and super impact co-polymer grades (used for batteries, automobile parts, luggage and heavy duty transport containers). Polyethylene is used for making injection moulded caps, heavy duty crates, containers, bins, textile bobbins, luggage ware, thermoware, storage bins, pressure pipes (for gas and water), small blow-moulded bottles, jerry cans, etc.