Karnataka state appoints PCPIR project adviser

29 October 2007 17:58  [Source: ICIS news]

MUMBAI (ICIS news)--India's Karnataka state has appointed a consortium of IL&FS and L&T-Ramboll as the project development adviser for its petroleum, chemicals and petrochemical investment region (PCPIR), a senior state government official said on Monday.

The consortium will prepare the prefeasibility report and project proposal application document to be presented before the central government for approval, SB Kolhar, a director at Karnataka government’s commerce and industries department told ICIS news on the sidelines of the Asian Chemical and Petrochemical Investment conference.

“The companies would also prepare the detailed project report and do the bid process management,” he added.

The mega-chemical hub would be set up in the Mangalore region, and Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Limited (MRPL) is the anchor investor for the region.

“The state submitted its project proposal to the central government’s Chemicals and Petrochemicals Department in August, for which it has completed the pre-scrutiny,” Kolhar said.

Karnataka will now submit its updated application in November, he added.

“The state has identified a 250 square-kilometre area, 40% or 100 square kilometres of which will be the processing zone. Around 31% of processing area has already been acquired by the state,” Kolhar said.

MRPL, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of ONGC, currently operates a 9.69m tonne/year refinery, crude and vacuum distillation units, hydrocracker units, soaker visbreakers, secondary processing facilities and other support units.

The company plans to expand its existing refining capacity to 15m tonnes/year, and build paraxylene (PX) and benzene plants, a liquefied natural gas (LNG) regasification plant and C2-C3 extraction from this regasified LNG, Kolhar said.

“MRPL is also planning for a second 15m tonne/year refinery,” he added.

The Mangalore PCPIR will be developed in three phases from 2008 to 2026, he said.

The conference is jointly organised ICIS and Indian Chemical Council and ends on Tuesday.

By: Divya Chowdhury
+65 6780 4359

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