India’s top refiner IOCL on Tuesday said it would invest ₹178.25 billion ($2.4 billion) to expand refining capacity at its Vadodara refinery in Gujarat and integrate it with polypropylene (PP) and lube production plants. After the upgrade, the refinery’s capacity will increase to 18 million tons/year from the current 13.7 million tons/year. IOCL will also build a 500,000 tons/year PP plant and a 235,000 tons/year Lube Oil Base Stock (LOBS) unit.
This project is part of IOCL’s goal to boost petrochemical capacity by 70% over the next ten years from 3.2 million tons/year currently. The firm is also working on a ₹288.69 billion ($3.92 billion) petrochemical projects that include adding monoethylene glycol (MEG), paraxylene (PX), and purified terephthalic acid (PTA) capacities at its Paradip refinery in Odisha; construction of acrylics/oxo-alcohol plant at its Gujarat refinery; and expansion of PX/PTA plant and naphtha cracker at its Panipat complex in Haryana.
According to Chairman Shrikant Madhav Vaidya, the company is also embarking into the textile business. IOCL is building a ₹19.7 billion ($267.78 million) textile manufacturing project at Bhadrak in Odisha. This complex will be able to produce up to 180,000 tons/year of drawn texture yarn (DTY), 108,000 tons/year of polyester staple fibre (PSF), and 36,000 tons/year of full drawn yarn (FDY). The complex will use MEG, PX, and PTA produced from IOCL’s Paradip facility.
