India’s Nayara Energy to start up new PP unit in end-2023

MUMBAI (ICIS)–India’s Nayara Energy expects to begin operations at its greenfield 450,000 tonne/year polypropylene (PP) plant between October and December 2023.

The new PP plant has been built at a site adjacent to the company’s existing refinery complex at Vadinar in the western Gujarat state, with a capital outlay of around $750m.

“The PP plant is part of the company’s vision of revamping and revitalising its Vadinar refinery into a world-class integrated refinery petrochemical complex,” Nayara Energy said in a statement on 30 December.

The petrochemical complex is being developed in phases. The PP line, a propylene recovery unit, along with upgrades to an existing fludized catalytic cracking (FCC) unit form Phase 1 of Nayara’s petrochemical complex.

“Phase-1 project development has achieved over 85% progress,” it said.

The revamped FCC unit was commissioned on 20 December 2022 and the company expects to begin pre-commissioning activities at the propylene recovery unit in February, it added.

“With completion of the FCC revamp, we have made significant progress on our petrochemical entry,” Nayara Energy CEO Alois Virag said.

In the second phase, the company expects to set up an integrated petrochemical complex, he added.

Nayara Energy’s refinery in Vadinar, Gujarat is the second largest in India. It has an annual capacity of 20m tonnes which constitutes about 8% of India’s overall refinery capacity.