MOSCOW (MRC) -- India's state-owned gas utility company GAIL India plans to import ethane from countries including the US, for its upcoming USD5 billion joint-venture Andhra Pradesh petrochemical plant, according to TPS with reference to GAIL's announcement on Monday.
GAIL is seeking 1.3 million mt/year of ethane for 15 years for its JV ethane cracker with India's Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd (HPCL), located on the east coast of India beginning 2022, the company said.
HPCL, exploration company Oil India Ltd (OIL), GAIL India, France's Total and the Lakshmi N Mittal Group signed a memorandum of understanding in 2007 to look at the feasibility of setting up a 15 million mt/year refinery and petrochemical project in Visakhapatnam (Vizag), Andhra Pradesh. In 2009, the INR 500 billion(USD7.36 billion) project was put on hold amid weak petrochemical demand, with most partners pulling out.
The refinery was designed to process sour and heavy crudes which are cheaper than low-sulphur sweet crude oil, while the petrochemical plant was originally conceived to use naphtha from the refinery as feedstock, but will now use natural gas as a feedstock instead, according to the company.
GAIL will be the second company in India after Reliance Industries (RIL) to import ethane.
RIL plans to import 1.5 million mt/year of ethane annually from the US to substitute its current propane imports, and a portion of the naphtha used for ethylene production. These imports could start as early as end-2016. RIL has executed storage and capacity agreements for liquefaction of ethane with a North American terminal and has also ordered six VLECs (Very Large Ethane Carriers) for transporting ethane to India.
We remind that, as MRC reported earlier, The Brahmaputra Cracker and Polymer Limited (BCPL), also known as the Assam gas cracker project, was partially commissioned in early July 2015. Three units of the petrochemical plant - the gas sweetening unit (GSU), C2+recovery unit and polypropylene unit (PPU) were commissioned. The ethylene cracker unit and linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE)/high density polyethylene (HDPE) unit were almost near completion then and were expected to be ready in two months.
The gascracker project is a joint venture in which GAIL holds equity share of 70%, while OIL, NRL and the state government hold 10% stake each. GAIL and BCPL have already inked a deal for marketing petrochemical products produced at the plant. There are also plans to export polymer and finished products to countries like Bangladesh, Myanmar, Bhutan, Nepal and China.
MRC