India's IPCL plans to restart fire-hit VCM plant

29 November 2007 10:06  [Source: ICIS news]

SINGAPORE (ICIS news)--Indian Petrochemical Corp Ltd (IPCL) expects to restart its fire-damaged vinyl chloride monomer (VCM) plant by next Tuesday after a week-long outage, a source close to the company said on Thursday.

 

“The fire broke out in one of the two furnaces at the plant at 5.30pm on Tuesday evening but was put out in 30-40 minutes,” the source said.

 

None of the other plants in the complex, at Gandhar in the western state of Gujarat, were affected by the fire, the source added.

 

The 190,000 tonne/year plant provides feedstock to an adjoining 245,000 tonne/year polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plant.

 

“The company has enough VCM stocks to keep the PVC plant running for a couple of days more,” the source said.

 

However, a production loss of around 2,000 tonnes of PVC was expected due to the VCM shutdown, he said.

 

The source did not expect the outage to have much impact on the market. However, reports of the fire had further strengthened market sentiment for PVC, traders said.

 

PVC prices in the import market rebounded to $1,000-1,020/tonne CFR (cost and freight) India on Friday, after a steep decline in the past few weeks due to sluggish buying, according to global chemical market intelligence service ICIS pricing. 

 

In the domestic market, producers were evaluating a possible hike in PVC prices for December, sources close to the producers said.

 

IPCL is a wholly owned subsidiary of Reliance Industries. Major PVC producers in India besides Reliance, include Finolex Industries and Chemplast Sanmar.

 

By: Prema Viswanathan
+65 6780 4359

For the latest chemical news, data and analysis that directly impacts your business sign up for a free trial to ICIS news - the breaking online news service for the global chemical industry.

Get the facts and analysis behind the headlines from our market leading weekly magazine: sign up to a free trial to ICIS Chemical Business.

Printer Friendly