Wednesday 26 February 2014

Outlook on Indian petrochemical industry

In the year 2013, Indian petrochemical industry was significantly affected by an economic slowdown and the depreciation of the Indian currency. The Indian petrochemical producers are optimistic about the outlook of Indian petrochemical industry in near future. A number of investments are begin made by various state-owned energy companies to boost their petrochemical activities and are also expecting to become a major players in the petrochemical industry.
Indian petrochemical industry
Several petrochemical producers have scheduled to expand their production capacity at their plants, which will slow and steadily fill the gap between domestic and supply. However, as per the industry sources, comparatively, limited new domestic capacity is projected to come on-stream and as a result, import threats from Mideast and East Asian producers remain noteworthy for Indian producers.

According to the market experts, in the recent year the overall outlook petrochemical industry in India is somewhat more positive as the augmentation in GDP and industrial output is anticipated to be higher in year 2014 in compare to the previous year. Since November 2013 the market condition had been buoyant and double digit growth is expected to grow in the ending of the FY15.

The Indian petrochemical and downstream industries were drastically affected by the fall of the Indian currency. This fall in Indian currency were directly impacted on the converter industry in India, as the values of majority of petrochemical products in India were based on an import parity price. In the fiscal year 2012, one of major petrochemical producers Indian Oil had reported revenue of almost USD 2.5 billion in compare to the previous fiscal year. Currently the total revenue of petrochemical business of Indian Oil accounts for about 3.5% and in the next few year the company is planning to increase the share of petrochemicals in the overall revenue.

During past three year, the economic growth in India is once again increasing after a slowdown and as per the estimates done by the research analyst, in the fiscal year ending 31st March 2014, the GDP growth rate of India will increase from 4.6% to 5.4% and 6.3% in the fiscal 2015. According to the market experts, the long term growth outlook of Indian petrochemical industry is likely to remain optimistic and during 2013, the demand growth in India was low in compare to the prior year. As the manufacturing sector is struggling the market experts do not expect the single digit growth rate to considerably improve in the near future.

Nearly few major petrochemical manufactures have scheduled to build up new petrochemical plants at their units. Indian Oil and BP which is one of the major petrochemical manufactures are planning to start a new Acetic Acid plant in Gujarat. The plant will be having production capacity of 1 million mt/year and will be one of the largest Acetic acid plants in Gujarat, India. This plant is a joint venture between Indian Oil and BP and the firm would be investing nearly USD 1 billion for setting up the facility near Koyali refinery of IOC. The acetic acid facility which is located in Vadodara city is expected to begin its operational in 2017. Indian Oil is also studying a number of projects based on refinery propylene at Koyali.
Another petrochemical major ONGC Mangalore Petrochemicals Ltd. is building an aromatics complex in the 
Mangalore special economic zone (SEZ). The OMPL is promoted by ONGC and Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd. is a subsidiary of ONGC. The Aromatics complex will be producing Paraxylene with production capacity of 900,000 mt/year, Benzene with about 300,000 mt/year and the plant is expected to starts its operational in the fiscal year ending March 2015.

Two major petrochemical industry Ineos and Sinopec have signed a joint venture agreement and the Articles of Association to form a 50-50 joint venture company at Nanjing on Tuesday. The joint venture will be called Ineos YPC Phenol Nanjing Co. which will set to build the largest Phenol-Acetone plant in China and will have a total investment of approximately USD 0.5 billion (RMB 3.15 billion) and is expected to start its operation by the end of 2016. The plant will be located Nanjing Chemical Industrial Park and the annual capacity of the new plant will be at least 400,000 tonnes of Phenol and 250,000 tonnes of Acetone. The complex will also include 550,000 mt/year of cumene capacity. This joint venture is the largest investment of Ineos in China and the eighth joint venture of Sinopec Yangzi Petrochemical Company.

Global Petrochemical manufacturer – Reliance to expand its production capacity at two major petrochemical plants based in Dahej and Jamnagar. The company will commission PTA plant located at Dahej around 1.1 million mt/year in the third quarter of 2014 which is followed by another plant of the same capacity within six months. However, the total production capacity of PTA will be 4.3 million mt/year, which will make the company the fifth largest producer of PTA in the world. In the year 2015, the company is likely to build Ethylene plant at Jamnagar. The commercial start up of the plant is expected to start in the second half of 2015. The plant situated at Jamnagar will have a production capacity of 1.5 million mt/year.

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