Indianoil Planning Petrochem Unit In Haldia

Kolkata: After Panipat and Paradip, IndianOil is planning the third petrochemicals complex, albeit a smaller one, at Haldia, according to sources.

The company is considering setting up a parazylene plant in the existing refinery complex beginning 2012. The cost and capacity estimates of the project are yet to be finalised.

Parazylene is a petrochemical product and is used as a feedstock in the neighbouring MCC PTA India Corporation Pvt Ltd - a subsidiary of Tokyo-based Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation for producing purified terephthalic acid (PTA).

Delayed coker unit

The parazylene plant coupled with the virtually finalised plan to set up a Rs 350-crore delayed coker unit in the refinery may, however, reduce the availability of naphtha for Haldia Petrochemicals Ltd (HPL).

The delayed coker project will be finalised as soon as the company is given possession of an additional 86 acre land next to its refinery.

The Union Shipping Ministry has already approved the allotment of land currently under the possession of the closed Hindustan Fertiliser Corporation (HFC) facility at Haldia and the physical handover is expected to take place shortly.

Delayed coker will replace roughly 50 per cent production of black oil (including naphtha) by petroleum coke and improve the distillate yield to over 70 per cent from the existing 65 per cent.

The company will use a part of the reduced naphtha production for production of parazylene and the rest is likely to make its way to HPL, also located in Haldia.

Haldia Refinery currently processes 6 million tonne (mt) crude. The capacity will go up to 7.5 mt once the on-going Rs 1,600-crore hydrocracker project is implemented next year.

Single point mooring

Meanwhile, IOC is expecting a boost to its bottomline beginning December 2007 with the completion of the single point mooring (SPM) facility at Paradip and the connecting crude pipeline to Haldia. The total project cost is estimated to be Rs 1,178 crore.

While the pipeline between Paradip and Haldia is already laid, work is still pending on the sub-sea pipeline connecting the SPM.