India's Haldia complex to achieve full output next week

19 February 2010 14:43  [Source: ICIS news]

SINGAPORE (ICIS news)--India's Haldia Petrochemicals expects to achieve full output at its cracker complex next week, in the wake of its restart this week following a 14-week turnaround, sources close to the company said on Friday.

"We hope the complex will be running at 100% capacity in the next few days," one of the sources said.

The company had shut down its 520,000 tonne/year naphtha cracker and polymer plants at Haldia in West Bengal state at the end of October for a ten-week maintenance turnaround which was later extended to 14 weeks. During this period, the capacity of the cracker and its downstream plants was expanded by 30%.

The current tightness in Indian polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP) markets was expected to ease once the Haldia complex restarts fully, traders said.

Haldia's cracker was debottlenecked to 670,000 tonnes/year during the turnaround. Its PE capacity was increased to around 700,000 tonnes/year from 550,000 tonnes/year, while the capacity of its PP plant was expanded to 370,000 tonnes/year from 270,000 tonnes/year.

India’s two other cracker operators – Reliance Industries and Gail India Ltd - were running their plants at full capacity, sources close to the companies said.

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By: Prema Viswanathan
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