Haldia Petrochemicals to resume PP, PE exports in March

25 February 2010 01:55  [Source: ICIS news]

SINGAPORE (ICIS news)--India's Haldia Petrochemicals plans to resume exports of polypropylene (PP) and polyethylene (PE) in March after a four-month hiatus, a source close to the company said late on Wednesday.

“The company is currently catering only to the Indian market, as there is a huge backlog of orders from domestic customers,” the source said.

The polymer producer restarted its PE and PP plants, along with its cracker in mid February, after a 14-week maintenance shutdown, which created severe supply shortages.

"The complex is currently running at around 90%, and is expected to achieve 100% output 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 turnaround which was later extended to 14 weeks. During this period, the capacity of the cracker and its downstream plants was expanded by 30%.

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 has two other cracker operators – Reliance Industries  and Gail India.

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By: Prema Viswanathan
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