Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) is planning to expand Dahej Manufacturing Division (DMD), a petrochemical and downstream manufacturing unit, with an investment of Rs 5,100 crore ($700 million).
“Dahej petrochemical manufacturing facility is proposing to set up the new plants and facilities, which includes manufacturing of Ethylene Dichloride (EDC), CHDM, PET-G, establishing New incinerator in VCM unit, separation of hydrogen as a product in CA plant and CO2 recovery unit in EO-EG unit. These plants will be located within the existing RIL DMD spread over 700 hectares,” the company said.
The proposed EDC plant will meet the feedstock requirement of an initial plant which will produce 500,000 tons per year of Vinyl Chloride Monomer (VCM)/ polyvinyl chloride (PVC). The Dahej site has an existing 360,000 tons per year of VCM/PVC capacity and has approvals to build a new VCM/PVC plant of 1.2 million tons per year capacity.
According to the company, DMD will produce 200,000 ton per year of PET-G post expansion of the facility. PET-G or Polyethylene Terephthalate (with a glycol modification) is among the most common polymers used currently. It is used to make water bottles, food packets and other common plastic items.
DMD will also produce 50,000 ton per year of Cyclohexanedimethanol (CHDM), a key raw material used for producing PET-G as well as various other polymers. Amidst a global shift towards renewable energy and electric mobility, RIL is implementing a strategy to transform itself from a primary producer of fuels to chemicals.
In November 2019, RIL announced its plan on an oil-to-chemical strategy that involves setting up crude-to-chemical projects adjacent to the existing Jamnagar refinery and petrochemical complex at a cost of $9.75 billion.
The company also plans to remove production bottlenecks at its flagship Vadodara Manufacturing Division (VMD) at a cost of Rs 2,270 crore ($319 million).
RIL’s petrochemical production rose to 9.9 million ton during the quarter ended December 2019, as compared to 9.7 million ton produced in the corresponding quarter a year ago.