Plastics makers facing shortage of polymers due to HPL closure

Plastics makers in the downstream units of West Bengal today said they were facing acute shortage of polymers due to the prolonged closure of Haldia Petrochemicals Ltd (HPL).
"The 2,500-odd plastics units in the state are seriously suffering due to close-to two months closure of HPL which was shut down due to a technical snag," president of Indian Plastics Federation (IPF), Pradeep Nayyar, said.
The demand of polymers in the state was around 19,500 tonnes per month, he told reporters on the launch of 'IndPlas 2015' exhibition here today.
Nayyar said following the closure of HPL, the gap in demand and supply of polymers had reached 11,000 MT monthly, for which the makers were facing huge shortage of the raw material.

"Nearly 2,000 tonnes of the gap could be managed by supplies from Reliance and Indian Oil while some other importing the product from overseas to maintain production," he said.
In spite of that, most of the units are running at less than 50 per cent of their capacity and few of them either were running on single shifts or cut down the days of work.
"If this continued, many units will be on the verge of closure and livelihood of 50,000-odd workers (direct and indirect) may be in peril," he said.
The plant was closed down on July six following a technical snag in the mother naphtha cracker plant.