The Adani Group will be developing a new coal-to-polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plant in Mundra, Gujarat, India according to an application by the company to India’s Ministry of Environment, Forests & Climate Change.
The plant is expected to produce 2 million metric tons per year of PVC grades such as suspension PVC (resin), chlorinated PVC (C-PVC) and emulsion PVC (paste).
The company also intends to establish a vinyl chloride monomer (VCM) plant to produce PVC. This unit is projected to have a capacity of 2.002 million tons per year.
The company expects to complete the project with in the next four years after receiving all the necessary approvals, it added.
The group stated that coal of about 3.1 million tonnes per year for the project will be sourced mainly from Australia, Russia and other countries.
In the coal-to-PVC process, the coal (coking coal/thermal coal/blend of coal and petcoke) is processed through the coal pyrolysis unit to produce calcium carbide which is further processed to acetylene.
The acetylene gas is then processed together with hydrochloric acid from the company’s chloralkali plant to produce vinyl chloride monomer (VCM) which is then used to make PVC, as per the company statement.
According to the company, the project will produce 2.86 million metric tons per year of lime, 2.9 million metric tons per year of calcium carbide, and 860,000 metric tons per year of acetylene, and hydrate lime sludge from coal feedstock which are then processed to produce PVC.
In addition, the Conglomerate also expects to produce 1.3 million metric tons per year of caustic soda, 1.23 million metric tons per year of hydrochloric acid (HCL), and 16,000 metric tons per year of sodium hypochlorite as byproducts.
The facility is also expected to produce 130,000 metric tons per year of caustic potash, 100,000 metric tons per year of potassium carbonate, and 200,000 metric tons per year of sodium bicarbonate.
India currently imports more than 50% of its PVC requirements and these imports are expected to rise further with no recent new capacity additions. India is one of the fastest growing petrochemical markets in the world and requires several petrochemical plants to meet the rising demand, stated the firm.
PVC and caustic soda are two basic segments of the Indian industry which facilitate a chain of downstream industries such as agriculture, infrastructure, housing and sanitation and other similar industries.
The proposed project will also help to reduce import dependence for polymers by promoting domestic production, the company concluded.