GAIL to double capacity of Pata petrochemical plant

Secretary, Petroleum & Natural Gas lays Foundation Stone for 6th Gas Cracker Furnace; HDPE Unit dedicated to the Nation.

Shri R.S. Pandey, Secretary, Petroleum and Natural Gas, Government of India today laid the foundation stone of the 6th gas cracker furnace at Pata plant. The additional furnace will be of Rs. 97 crore and will help boost the petrochemical plant capacity from 4,10,000 TPA to 5,00,000 TPA in the first phase. Dr. U. D. Choubey, Chairman and Managing Director, GAIL, Shri A.K. Purwaha, Director (Business Development), Shri B. C. Tripathi, Director (Marketing), Shri C N Trivedi, Executive Director & OIC Pata and other senior officials of GAIL were present on the occasion.

Speaking on the occasion, Shri R S Pandey, Secretary, Petroleum and Natural Gas complimented GAIL on timely action taken regarding expansion of the Cracker plant. He appreciated the work being done by GAIL-Pata, especially the record on Efficiency, Energy saving, Safety and Corporate Social Responsibility. Earlier, welcoming the Secretary, Dr. U.D. Choubey, CMD, GAIL explained to him the initiative taken by GAIL in setting up the plant at Pata and various steps taken by GAIL for the de-bottlenecking and efficiency improvement etc.

GAIL (India) Limited is considering doubling of capacity of its Pata Petrochemical Complex. The present installed polymer capacity of 410,000 Tons per year is to be finally increased to 800,000 tons per year by leveraging synergy of the existing facilities and augmenting these additional facilities.

Shri Pandey also dedicated the HDPE – 2 unit at Pata to the nation. The HDPE unit is designed to produce 100,000 Tons per year of High Density Poly Ethylene based on Mitsui Technology. The Unit, a part of the Rs. 647 Crore Pata Expansion Project was commissioned on 29th December 2007.

GAIL considers petrochemicals as one of the key focus areas of growth, the second most important business after natural gas. In order to strengthen its position in petrochemicals, GAIL has jointly assessed areas in North Asia and CIS states for setting up a mega petrochemical complex through public – private participation where RIL has already been roped in. Further, GAIL has also signed an MoU for participation in an integrated Refinery and Petrochemical Complex at Vizag in a joint venture with Total of France, HPCL, Mittal Energy and Oil India Limited.

Presently, GAIL owns and operates a gas based integrated petrochemical plant at Pata, Uttar Pradesh with a capacity of producing 400,000 TPA of Ethylene and 410,000 TPA of Polymers i.e. HDPE and LLDPE. Further, GAIL led Joint Venture Company (JVC), Brahmaputra Cracker and Polymer Limited (BCPL) is implementing the Rs. 54.61 billion Assam Gas Cracker Project to set-up an integrated Petrochemical Complex at Lepetkata, District Dibrugarh. The project will be completed in 60 months from the date of approval. The petrochemical complex will comprise of a cracker unit, downstream polymer and integrated off-site/utilities plants. The complex has been configured with a capacity of 220,000 tons per annum (TPA) of Ethylene and 60,000 tons per annum of propylene with Natural Gas and Naphtha as feed stock. Recently, licensors for polyethylene and polypropylene technologies for the petrochemical plant have been finalized.

During 2007-2008, the production of polymers was 3.86 lakh MT and the polymer sales were 3.91 lakh MT.