IOC raising Panipat capacity to 15 mt by mid year
The country’s largest oil marketing company, Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) is raising its Panipat refinery capacity by 25 per cent to 15 million tonnes (mt) from October. This will be at a cost of Rs 1,000 crore. At present, IOC has a refining capacity of 51.2 mt and after the expansion it will rise to around 54 mt, reports the Business Standard. IOC recently entered the polymer business with the first set of polymers from the recently inaugurated naphtha cracker plant at Panipat. IOC’s competitor, Reliance Industries, is one of he the largest players globally in polymers with an estimated market share of 75 per cent. IOC has been making efforts to diversify into petrochemicals from the liquid fuel business, where its margins remain under pressure as it is required to sell products such as petroleum, diesel, kerosene and LPG at government-determined prices. IOC’s naphtha cracker plant, built at a cost of Rs 14,400 crore, is the country’s biggest operating cracker plant. The company will source about 2 mt naphtha the primary feedstock for the plant, from its refineries at Koyali, Panipat and Mathura.
At present, the plant is operating at 50-60 per cent of its capacity of 850,000 tonnes. The company’s naphtha export wills come down gradually as its internal naphtha consumption goes up. The naphtha cracker plant comprises downstream units for producing ethylene, propylene, benzene and associated products. These find application in manufacture of films, toys, tanks, pipes, furniture, auto components and electrical equipment.
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