The state government is keen to promote a deep water port near the proposed chemical hub at Nayachar near Haldia before any major petrochemical facility comes up.
“Work on the port and refinery can also start together. But, we urgently require the port near the Petroleum, Chemical and Petrochemical Investment Region (PCPIR) as the draft in the Hooghly channel has shown a sharp fall last year resulting in a crisis for the Haldia port,” state industry secretary Sabyasachi Sen said today on the sidelines of a conference on plastic waste management organised by the Indian Plastic Federation.
Sen had earlier indicated to Business Standard that the state government planned to take up work on two pending port projects after the Lok Sabha elections. The deep water port will have a depth of 21 metres and will enable bulk carriers to offload cargo for the state's petrochemical hub project in Nayachar island near Haldia. The Rs 10,000 crore project would take around five to six years to build. "The PCPIR developer would also build this port as it is part of the chemical hub project. It is not possible to run a refinery at Nayachar without a dedicated deep draft port,” Sen had said.
Meanwhile, Bijoy Chatterjee, secretary, department of chemicals & petrochemicals, government of India said the central government would shortly sign a Memorandum of Agreement(MoA) with West Bengal, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh, states where PCPIRs are coming up. “The agreement would detail the timeframe of the execution of the projects and also the responsibilities to be shared between the states and the Centre,” Chatterjee said.
State governement officials visited Japan and the Republic of Korea as part of a government of India delegation led by Chatterjee in March to promote the PCPIRs in the three states. The Centre approved PCPIRs at Haldia in West Bengal, Dahej in Gujarat and Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh, under the public-private model in February.
The delegation met representatives from Mitsui Chemicals, Japan Chemical Industry Association (JCIA), Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation, Kuraray Petrochemical Co., Japan India Business Co-operation Committee JIBCC, Korea Petrochemical Industry association, Korea Importers Association (KOIMA), Korea Trade Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA), Maxtin Business Advisory India Pvt. Ltd, among others.
Sen said, “We have lined up Indian Oil Corporation and Cals Refinery as prospective developers for the refinery at the PCPIR zone. Once the refinery is up and running, it would draw investments in naphtha crackers and subsequently in downstream petrochemical industries.” Chatterjee met state chief secretary Ashok Mohan Chakraborty at Writers’ Building today. The Visakhapatnam chemical hub has already received an investment commitment of around $38 billion and the region is expected to see an investment of another over $50 billion.
Meanwhile, the Andhra Pradesh government is mulling to build minor ports with investments of around Rs8,000-9,000 crore besides a Rs35,000 crore investment in infrastructure.
