The facility will have a capacity of 387,000 t/y and will cost about $603 million to build. It will be built at IndianOil’s Panipat refinery in Haryana and is scheduled to go online by 2026-2027.

IndianOil said India’s styrene consumption is around 900,000 t/y and demand is expected to increase consistently over the next 15-20 years. The country has no domestic styrene capacity and the new plant will substantially reduce its dependency on foreign imports, saving about $500 million a year. All of India’s demand is currently met by imports from Singapore, the Middle East and Southeast Asia.

In February, the IndianOil board approved an expansion of its Panipat refinery to include the installation of a fluid catalytic cracking unit that would produce ethylene and propylene. The ethylene would feed the proposed styrene plant while the 514,000 t/y propylene output would feed a new PP unit.

Last month, the company entered into an agreement with the Gujarat government to build additional petrochemical plants for PP, butyl acrylate and lube oil base stock at its refinery in Vadodara. Investment costs are estimated at $3.3 billion.

Author: Elaine Burridge, Freelance Journalist