Oil and Natural Gas Corporation will kick off its petrochemical foray this week when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh lays the foundation stone for its Rs 4,900-crore (Rs 49 billion) Aromatic Complex at Mangalore.
"On June 23, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will lay the foundation stone of ONGC's one million tonnes per annum capacity Aromatics (Petrochemicals) Complex at Mangalore," a top company official said.
The petrochemicals complex would be executed through a Special Purpose Vehicle of ONGC. ONGC would hold 46 per cent stake in the SPV while its subsidiary Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd would have 3 per cent. The balance 51 per cent would be with financial institutions and banks.
The aromatics project would be completed in three years after finalisation of the process licensor and engineering, which is expected in a years' time, he said.
Naphtha produced at MRPL, which is being to 15 million tonnes a year from its present nameplate capacity of 9.69 million tonnes per annum at an estimated cost of Rs 8000 crore (Rs 80 billion), would be the feedstock for producing petrochemical building blocks Paraxylene and Benzene.
The official said MRPL proposes to set up an Olefin complex, for which state-owned Engineers India Ltd has been asked to prepared a detailed feasibility report.
The two projects are part of ONGC's over Rs 35,000-crore (Rs 350 billion) investment in Mangalore Special Economic Zone, which will house a new 15 million tonnes refinery, power, LNG and petrochemical plants. M-SEZ would be the first Petroleum, Chemicals, Petrochemicals Investment Region of the country.
About 200 acres of land, including that for green belt, would be required for the Aromatic Complex to produce petrochemical building blocks Paraxylene and Benzene, the first in Southern India, the official said. It would need 1600 cubic metres of raw water per hour.
"The integrated Aromatics (Petrochemicals) complex will produce paraxylene. The Naphtha produced at Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Limited (an ONGC subsidiary) will be upgraded to Paraxylene in this Aromatics Complex," the official said.
About 2 million tonnes per annum of Heavy Naphtha would be the feedstock to produce 0.95 million tonnes a year of paraxylene and around 0.l5 million tonnes per annum of benzene, the rest being LPG, gasoline pool feed and tail gas.
The proposed Olefin Complex would use naphtha and propylene to produce polymers like high-density polyethelene, linear low-density polyethelene, polypropylene and mono-ethylene glycol.
ONGC took over MRPL in March 2003 and turned it around from a sick refinery to a profit making venture in 368 days flat.
ONGC-MRPL are promoting a 7.5 million tonnes per annum refinery at Kakinada, Andhra Pradesh. MRPL has been nominated by the government as the buyer of Rajasthan crude, and ONGC-MRPL would be promoting a 7.5 million tonnes refinery at Barmer, Rajasthan.
"With these, ONGC-MRPL's refining capacity will go up from less than 10 million tonnes per annum to 45 million tonnes a year, with world-scale petrochemicals complexes," the official said.
MRPL is also commissioning a light naphtha isomerisation unit to produce Euro-III and IV gasoline.
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