IOC To Invest Rs 4,500 Crore For India’s First Styrene Monomer Project In Haryana, Will Save Rs 3,650 Crore Forex Every Year

Indian Oil Corporation Limited plans to invest Rs 4,495 crore to set up India's first-ever styrene monomer project in Haryana.

The Indian Oil's Board has accorded stage - 1 approval for implementation of styrene monomer project with a capacity of 387 thousand metric tonnes per annum (TMTPA) at Indian Oil's Panipat Refinery and Petrochemical Complex.

Styrene is used to produce Poly Styrene, Paints and Coatings / Acrylic, Unsaturated Polyester Resins, and Elastomers such as Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS), Styrene-Butadiene Rubber (SBR) etc.

Presently India's Styrene consumption is around 900 TMTPA, and the demand is expected to increase consistently over the next 15-20 years. However, there is no domestic Styrene capacity in India. The entire demand is met through imports from Singapore, Middle East and Southeast Asia, causing significant inconvenience to the domestic Styrene downstream industry.

The proposed Styrene Project will address this issue to a great extent and reduce the nation's import dependence substantially. Thus, considerable forex savings of about Rs 3,650 crore (USD 500 million) per annum is likely to be generated.

"The project would be commissioned by 2026-27. Availability of Styrene domestically is expected to accelerate the growth of downstream industry and create employment opportunities," the company said.

Earlier in February 2021, the Indian Oil Board approved the Panipat Refinery Expansion Project to enhance its capacity from the existing 15 MMTPA to 25 MMTPA with a CAPEX of Rs 32,946 Crore.

As part of the Expansion Project, a new high severity Fluidized Catalytic Cracking Unit (FCCU) of 2.5 MMTPA capacity, based on Indian Oil's flagship INDMAX technology, would be set up to maximize LPG production and manufacture basic petrochemical building blocks - Propylene and Ethylene.

"There is a Propylene potential of around 514 KTA of in the project, which would be utilized for the production of Polypropylene (PP) through a new PP unit. The Styrene Project utilizes the Ethylene potential from the INDMAX Unit alongwith Benzene, which is already being produced at the Panipat Complex," the company said.