Construction works to start on BPCL’s Bina refinery expansion in India

MUMBAI (ICIS)–Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid on Thursday the foundation stone for Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd’s (BPCL) refinery expansion and greenfield petrochemical project in Bina.

The Indian rupees (Rs) 490bn ($5.9bn) project in the central Madhya Pradesh state will increase BPCL’s refinery capacity to 11m tonnes/year from 7.8m tonnes/year currently. A manufacturing complex will also be build to produce more than 2.2m tonnes/year of petrochemical products, the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas (MoPNG) said in a statement on 13 September.

“This project will catalyze industrial development and will enable the government’s vision of setting up a Petroleum Chemicals and Petrochemicals Investment Region (PCPIR) in the state,” the ministry said.

It would help in the development of downstream industries in the pharmaceutical, automobile, packaging, storage and pipes and fittings sectors, it added.

BPCL expects to complete the construction and commissioning of the project within five years.

Once operational, the Bina petrochemical complex will increase BPCL’s share of petrochemicals in its product portfolio to approximately 8%, BPCL chairman G Krishnakumar said during the company’s annual general meeting on 28 August.

The company plans to fund the project through a combination of equity and debt funds in addition to internal generations, he added.

The planned petrochemical complex is expected to have a cracker with a 1.2m tonne/year ethylene capacity; a 650,000 tonne/year LLDPE/HDPE (linear low density polyethylene/high density PE) swing plant; a 500,000 tonne/year HDPE unit; a 550,000 tonne/year polypropylene (PP) line; and a 50,000 tonne/year butene-1 unit, based on BPCL’s September 2022 report submitted to the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change.

($1 = Rs82.95)