West Bengal Sanguine On Foreign Investments
Tokyo-based Nichimen Corpor-ation is close to setting up a Rs 180-crore downstream project in Haldia, West Bengal, for the production of styrene butadiene rubber. This will take the total quantum of expected investments in downstream projects to an estimated Rs 950 crore. According to sources in the state government, the Japanese firm is scouting for strategic partners and it will not be long before a few more Japanese firms tie up with the company for the project. "Japanese firms normally function by forging linkages with compatriots and working in a coordinated manner," said an official.
Plans for other projects nearing finalisation, include a Rs 600-crore polybutadiene rubber unit to be promoted by German chemicals major Bayer. Parleys with a frontline European firm for establishing a carbon black unit at an estimated cost of Rs 150 crore are also on. A delegation from Europe will visit the city next week for negotiations on the carbon black unit.
Another project for the production of poly-styrene rubber is also at the conceptual stage. All the downstream projects will source their raw materials from the Rs 5,170 crore Haldia Petrochem-icals, slated to go onstream in August 1999. The state is expecting a rush of investments in the downstream as well as upstream sectors once HPL is commissioned. For the purpose of offering world class infrastructure to the downstream units, Singapore-based Jurong Town Corporation is working with the The Chatterjee Group on a master plan for a poly park project. The per capita consumption of plastics in the state is 0.8 kg and as low as 0.08 kg in the north-eastern region, compared with the all-India figure of 1.18 kg and a world average of 15 kg. The Haldia project comprises a naphtha cracker (with technology from ABB Lummus) and associated process units which would have a capacity to produce 300,000 tonnes per annum of ethylene (with provisions to go up to 420,000 tonnes), 210,000 TPA of propylene, 66,000 TPA benzene,
75,000 TPA butadiene and 79,000 pyrolysis gasoline.