Brahmaputra Cracker & Polymer Ltd. (BCPL) has started commissioning activities for the first phase of its long-awaited integrated petrochemical complex in the Lepetkata region of Dibrugarh District, Assam, India (OGJ Online, May 29, 2012).
BCPL commissioned Stage-1 of the 10,000 crores Assam gas cracker project (AGCP), Northeast India’s first petrochemical complex, on Nov. 25, India’s Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas (MPNG) Shri Dharmendra Pradhan said in a series of posts to his official Twitter account.
While plant’s cracker, polypropylene (PP) unit, gas processing unit, and all utilities have entered operation with ethylene production now under way, the high-density polyethylene (HDPE) and linear low-density PE (LLDPE) unit is scheduled to begin production following receipt of ample ethylene feedstock from the cracker.
BCPL said it expects the entire plant to be commissioned in the coming weeks.
According to AGCP documents filed with India’s government list, once fully operational, the petrochemical complex will have the capacity to produce 220,000 tpy of HDPE-LLDPE, 60,000 tpy of PP, as well capacities for production of pyrolysis gasoline and fuel oil.
First proposed in August 1985 as a measure to spur development of downstream plastic processing industries in the region, AGCP finally gained approval from India’s Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs in April 2006, according to BCPL, which was established in 2007 to implement the project by Indian public sector enterprises GAIL (India) Ltd. 70%, Oil India Ltd (OIL) 10%, Numaligarh Refinery Ltd. (NRL) 10%, and the government of Assam’s Assam Industrial Development Corp. 10%.
AGCP will receive natural gas feedstock from OIL and India’s Oil and Natural Gas Corp. Ltd., with naphtha feedstock to come from NRL.
Originally budgeted at about 55 billion rupees and scheduled for startup in 2012, the project required a final investment of about 100 billion rupees following a series of delays alongside rising construction costs, according to India’s government.
Contact Robert Brelsford at [email protected].