Indian Oil board accords Stage-I approval for India’s first-ever Styrene project

New Delhi: Indian Oil board has accorded 'Stage-1' approval for implementation of India's first-ever 'Styrene Monomer Project' with a capacity of 387 thousand metric tonnes per annum (TMTPA) at an estimated cost of Rs 4,495 crore, at Indian Oil's Panipat Refinery & Petrochemical Complex. This project will strengthen India's focus to harness opportunities in the petrochemical sector and sync with the government of India's "Atmanirbhar Bharat" mission.

Earlier in February 2021, the Indian Oil Board approved the Panipat Refinery Expansion Project to enhance its capacity from the existing 15 MMTPA to 25 MMTPA with a CAPEX of Rs 32,946 crore. As part of the expansion project, a new high severity Fluidized Catalytic Cracking Unit (FCCU) of 2.5 MMTPA capacity, based on Indian Oil's flagship INDMAX technology, would be set up to maximize LPG production and manufacture basic petrochemical building blocks – propylene and ethylene.

There is a propylene potential of around 514 KTA of in the project, which would be utilized for the production of polypropylene (PP) through a new PP unit. The styrene project aims to utilize the ethylene potential from the INDMAX Unit alongside the Benzene that is already being produced at the Panipat Complex.

Styrene is used to produce polystyrene, paints & coatings or acrylic, unsaturated polyester resins, and elastomers such as Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS), Styrene-Butadiene Rubber (SBR) etc.

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Presently India's Styrene consumption is around 900 TMTPA, and the demand is expected to increase consistently over the next 15-20 years. However, there is no domestic Styrene capacity in India, and the entire demand is met through imports from Singapore, Middle East and Southeast Asia, causing significant inconvenience to the domestic Styrene downstream industry. The proposed Styrene Project will address this issue to a great extent and reduce the nation's import dependence substantially. Thus, considerable forex savings of about Rs 3,650 crore (USD 500 million) per annum is likely to be generated.

The project would be commissioned by 2026-27. The availability of Styrene domestically is expected to accelerate the growth of downstream industry and create employment opportunities.

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