MOSCOW (MRC) -- Reliance Industries has confirmed plans to invest 700 billion Indian rupees (USD9.75 billion) to establish a crude-oil-to-chemicals (COTC) complex at the company's Jamnagar, India, according to Chemweek.
In an application to India's environment ministry, the company states that it plans to leverage the operations of its existing Jamnagar refinery and gasification assets, as a future growth platform to maximize the production of petrochemicals. The company is proposing to develop a total area of 2,000 acres adjacent to its world-scale facilities at Jamnagar to build the COTC complex.
Reliance plans to establish COTC units including a multi-feed steam cracker and multi-zone catalytic cracking (MCC) unit. The plan is also to convert the Jamnagar site's existing fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) unit to a high-severity FCC (HSFCC) or Petro FCC unit, to maximize ethylene and propylene yields.
The MCC/HSFCC complex will have combined capacity for 8.5 million metric tons/year (MMt/y) of ethylene and propylene, and total extraction capacity for 3.5 MMt/y of benzene, toluene, and xylenes. It will also have combined capacity for 4.0 MMt/y of para-xylene (p-xylene) and ortho-xylene.
The steam cracker will have combined capacity for 4.1 MMt/y of ethylene and propylene, and feed crude C4s to a 700,000-metric tons/year butadiene extraction plant. Reliance will also add 1.3 MMt/y of p-xylene capacity at existing plants at Jamnagar.
Derivative plants will make an extensive range of products across the C1-4 and C6 value chains. In the C1 chain, the complex will produce acetic acid, with a capacity of 3MMt/y; acetic anhydride, 750,000 metric tons/year; ethyl acetate, 1.5 MMt/y; vinyl acetate monomer, 1 MMt/y; polyvinyl alcohol, 150,000 metric tons/year; formic acid, 400,000 metric tons/year; dimethyl ether, 2.7 MMt/y; polyketone, 350,000 metric tons/year; isononyl alcohol, 300,000 metric tons/year; methyl methacrylate, 700,000 metric tons/year; polymethyl methacrylate, 350,000 metric tons/year; methanol, 3.6 MMt/year; ethanol, 500,000 metric tons/year; and urea, 2.6 MMt/y.
Reliance says that in the C2 value chain, it plans to manufacture polyethylene, with a capacity of 3 MMt/y; vinyl chloride monomer and polyvinyl chloride, 4.5 MMt/y; and ethylene-propylene diene monomer rubber, 240,000 metric tons/year.
In the C3 chain, the complex will produce acrylic acid (AA), with a capacity of 720,000 metric tons/year; glacial AA, 150,000 metric tons/year; oxo-alcohols, 740,000 metric tons/year; acrylates, 800,000 metric tons/year; cumene, 1.5 MMt/y; phenol, 1 MMt/y; acetone, 620,000 metric tons/year; bisphenol A, 500,000 metric tons/year; polycarbonate, 600,000 metric tons/year; isopropyl alcohol, 250,000 metric tons/year; propylene oxide, 1 MMt/y; propylene glycol, 800,000 metric tons/year; and polypropylene, 5.2 MMt/year.
Reliance also aims to produce polybutadiene rubber, with a capacity of 280,000 metric tons/year and solution-styrene butadiene rubber, 6.5 MMt/y in the C4 value chain. In the C6 category, it intends to manufacture styrene and polystyrene, with capacity of 1 MMt/y; carbon black, 600,000 metric tons/year; and polyphenylene sulfide, 315,000 metric tons/year.
Reliance said in August that Saudi Aramco had decided to pay USD15 billion for a 20% stake, based on an enterprise value of USD75 billion, in Reliance's refining and chemicals business, which has been renamed the oil-to-chemicals (O2C) division. This would be one of the largest foreign investments ever made in India. A definitive agreement between Aramco and Reliance is expected to be signed by 31 March 2020. CW also learned in August that Reliance and Aramco would form a joint venture to build the COTC complex at Jamnagar.
Reliance's strategy is to transform the Jamnagar refinery from a producer of fuels to chemicals. The company ultimately wants to achieve a rate of more than 70% in the conversion of crude to olefins and aromatics.
A "tsunami of COTC projects" is on the way in Asia and expected to have a profoundly disruptive impact on the chemicals market because of the projects' sheer size and conversion capability, said R.J. Chang, vice president/Process Economic Program at IHS Markit at the 7th Annual Asia Chemical Conference, held earlier this month in Singapore. These projects can increase the yield of petchem conversion per barrel of oil to 40–60% from the 20% of traditional, well-integrated refinery-petchem complexes, Chang said.
Ethylene and propylene are feedstocks for the production of polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP).
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 1,589,580 tonnes in the first nine months of 2019, up by 7% year on year. Shipments of all PE grades increased. The estimated PP consumption in the Russian market was 976,790 tonnes in January-September 2019, up by 4% year on year. Shipments of PP block copolymer and homopolymer PP increased.
Reliance Industries is one of the world's largest producers of polymers. Thus, the company produces among others polypropylene, polyethylene and polyvinyl chloride.
MRC