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India:IPCL Gandhar plant in for major expansion - ethylene capacity to rise by 1MT |
2005-3-15
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The Reliance Group company Indian Petrochemicals Corporation Limited (IPCL), is expanding its ethylene cracker capacity at Gandhar, Gujarat by 100,000 tons, sources said. This would be achieved by installing a fifth gas cracking furnace, in addition to the four that already exist.
With this the total capacity of the plant will reach 400,000 tons, while the combined company''s ethylene capacity to 950,000 - 1million tons which includes output of its two other crackers at Vadodara and Nagothane in Maharashtra.
The production capacity of Nagothane cracker stands at 400,000 tons, the production capacity of the Vadodara cracker is being expanded by 40,000 tons to 170,000-180000 tons.
The Gandhar expansion began in January this year and would be completed by ''06, the cost for which have not been revealed.
Meanwhile, IPCL which joined the hitherto textile major Reliance Industries (RIL) after the formers takeover in ''02, is expected to expand capacities of its other products in the coming four years, requiring investments to the tune of Rs 350 crore.
Certain expansions envisage the mono ethylene glycol facility at Gandhar by 157 percent to 188,000 tons, increase in the caustic soda capacity by 25 percent to 170,000 tons and expansion of the polyvinyl chloride capacity by 135,000 tons.
Addressing the shareholders meet last year Chairman Mukesh Ambani informed that that the company would set up a separate 500,000 tons mono ethylene glycol (MEG) plant at Gandhar at the cost of Rs 1,000 crore.
Reliance Industries is also expanding its own cracker capacity to one million tons from about 750,000 tons. Together these expansions, when completed, would take the group''s overall cracker capacity alone to about two million tons.
Besides, RIL produces about 12.4m tons of various petrochemical products which is likely to rise to about 15m tons over the next three years. |
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