MOSCOW (MRC) -- India's state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp has deferred the startup of its new aromatics plant in Mangalore to the third quarter of 2014, from its previous schedule in March, reported Apic-online with reference to a statements of sources close to the company.
The plant is designed to produce 900,000 mt/year of paraxylene and 270,000 mt/year of benzene.
This is not the first time ONGC has deferred the startup of the plant.
ONGC had initially planned to start commercial operations in April 2013, but this was pushed back several times due to delays in construction.
Other than ONGC, several new PX plants across the region have also recently pushed back their startup dates to later this year.
Saudi Aramco Total Refining and Petrochemical Co., or Satorp, has delayed the startup of its new aromatics plant in Jubail to June-July, from February. The aromatics plant has a production capacity of 700,000 mt/year of paraxylene and 140,000 mt/year of benzene.
In South Korea, progress on SK Innovation's new 1.3 million mt/year PX plant in Incheon has been delayed slightly. The company had planned to bring the plant onstream in June or July, but construction works are now seen delayed because of an order from local authorities to halt work.
As MRC informed previously, in 2013, ONGC signed a memorandum of understanding with fellow Indian company Reliance Industries which could see the pair share the latter's infrastructure on the country's east coast. ONGC said the agreement would help minimise its capital expenditure as well as speed up the development of its deep-water fields which lie near Reliance's.
Besides, in September 2013, ONGC, the promoter of the ONGC Petro-Additions Ltd. (OPAL) project in Dahej, Gujarat, India, retained Ernst & Young to find a strategic partner for at least a 25% interest in OPAL. The USD3.24-billion project includes units to produce 1.1-million t/y of ethylene, 340,000 t/y of propylene, 720,000 t/y of linear low- and high-density polyethylene (LLDPE and HDPE), 340,000 t/y of polypropylene (PP), 95,000 t/y of butadi-ene and 135,000 t/y of benzene. Production is expected to begin in 2015.
MRC