Bharat Petroleum Corporation (BPCL) will set up an ethylene cracker plant at Rasayani, as the firm pushes further into the petrochemicals business to fuel growth.
The company will make an investment of around Rs 25,000 crore towards the project.
The share of petrochemicals in the company’s portfolio is currently around one percent as the refiner mostly focussed on transportation fuels so far. It plans to move from one percent to 10 percent and, if possible, go up to 15 percent.
The company is currently in the midst of modernizing its Mumbai refinery and shifting some of its non-process related facilities such as the LPG and POL plants to Rasayani. It is is buying land from Hindustan Organic Chemicals (HOC) to set up these units.
The project will be set up in two phases. In Phase-I, the company will put up the LPG and POL plants and replace the old catalytic cracking unit (CCU) and fluidized catalytic cracking unit (FCCU) with a modern petro resid fluidized catalytic cracking unit (PRFCC), which will produce Propylene.
The LPG and the POL plants will cost around Rs 2,000 crore and the Polypropylene plant will be around Rs 4,500 crore.
The Phase-II involves setting up an Ethylene cracker plant that is also connected to the refinery will require an investment of about Rs 25,000 crore.
The company has received first stage clearance from the board for the Ethylene cracker plant and it will commence a feasibility study on the same.
The company is looking forward to buy around 1,000 acre of land parcel from HOC for the Rasayani facility.
It has an arrangement with HOC for acquiring 684 acre, of which 243 acre is in its possession to be used for the LPG and POL plants, while the balance is in the process of being acquired.
Moreover, the company has also purchased land at Chembur, close to its refinery.
Apart from this, the company will commission its Rs 5,236 crore Propylene Derivative Petrochemical Project (PDPP) at Kochi refinery for manufacturing niche petrochemicals in the next six months. The company is investing Rs 11,130 crore to set up a facility in Kochi refinery for manufacturing Polyols, Propylene Glycol, and Mono-Ethylene Glycol.
