India’s DCT to invest Rs50bn in greenfield chems, specialty chems plants

MUMBAI (ICIS)–India’s Deepak Chem Tech (DCT), a wholly-owned subsidiary of chemicals producer Deepak Nitrite Ltd (DNL) plans to invest Rs 50bn ($604.32) over the next four years to set up plants to produce various chemicals it said in a statement.

The company signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Gujarat state government to set up these projects, Deepak Nitrite said in a disclosure to the Bombay Stock Exchange on 24 May.

DCT expects to produce specialty chemicals, phenol/acetone, and bisphenol at Dahej and Nandesari in Gujarat state.

Products from the project will find applications in the agrochemical, pharmaceutical, paints, adhesives and other industries, Deepak said without providing capacity details for the various plants.

“Bisphenol caters to epoxy and adhesives and is the most important feedstock for polycarbonate (PC),” it added.

Separately, DNL plans to bring online its PC compounding facility by November 2024, a company source said,

The PC compounding project will be developed in phases with the facility having the capacity to produce 35,000 tonnes/year in the first phase.

The company expects to bring its expanded phenol capacity online by June 2023. Deepak will increase its phenol capacity through debottlenecking, to 300,000 tonnes/year from the current 200,000 tonnes/year.

DNL plans to commission its greenfield 40,000 tonnes/year methyl isobutyl ketone (MIBK) and 8000 tonnes/year methyl isobutyl carbinol (MIBC) plants in the April to June quarter of financial year 2024-25. The company had earlier planned to commission the two plants by March 2024.

($1= Rs82.74)