Indian state-cowned refiner IOC’s (Indian Oil Corp.,) board of directors has given stage one approval to build the country’s first styrene monomer (SM) plant at its Panipat refinery and petrochemical complex.
The new plant will have a total capacity of 387,000 metric tons per annum. The plant will be built at an estimated cost of $6 billion, at Indian Oil’s Panipat Refinery & Petrochemical Complex.
This new SM plant along with part of Panipat refinery’s expansion project will boost its crude processing capacity from 300,000 barrels per day to 500,000 barrels per day. The new SM plant will consume the increased ethylene from the expansion and IOC’s existing 120,000 metric tons per annum benzene production.
SM is used to produce plastic and resins such as polystyrene, acrylonitrile butadiene styrene, unsaturated polyester resins, synthetics rubbers, with it also used in painting and coating applications.
India currently relies completely on SM imports from the Middle East and southeast Asia, with it adding South Korea, Taiwan, China and the US as suppliers in recent years.
India’s reliance on SM imports have been growing about 10% per year during 2011-18, with imports of 486,000 metric tons in 2011 rising to 852,000 metric tons in 2019. The growth slowed to 2% in 2019 because of changes in India’s economy. The negative growth of almost 17% last year, with imports falling to 710,000 metric tons, was an anomaly because of the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The project would be commissioned by 2026-27.
Availability of Styrene domestically is expected to accelerate the growth of downstream industry and create employment opportunities.