By Malini Hariharan
Reliance Industries is moving ahead with its Jamnagar cracker project and is looking at completing it in 2014, reports ICIS news.
Preliminary activity on the project, which was put on hold after the 2008 economic crisis, has resumed. Discussions are on for technology selection and a firm start up date will be set after contracts have been awarded.
The cracker, which would have a capacity to produce 1.3m-1.6m tonnes/year of ethylene and small volumes of propylene, would use offgases from Reliance's two refineries at the same site as the primary feedstock. Other refinery feeds would also be cracked.
The derivative slate includes mono ethylene glycol (MEG), low-density polyethylene (ldPE) and linear-low density polyethylene (lldPE).
It is not only the cracker project that is being revived. Reliance is also refreshing plans for new capacities in purified terephthalic acid (PTA), polyester, styrene butadiene rubber and butadiene rubber (BR).
The company had said last year after the completion of its second refinery that it would renew its focus on the olefins and derivatives project.
With Indian petrochemical demand showing very healthy growth prospects it makes sense for Reliance to expand in the country. And as its effort to grow the petrochemicals business inorganically by acquiring LyondellBasell has failed its time for Reliance to return to something that it is very good at - building mega projects.
