Indian Oil Corp to invest around $3.3bn in new projects at Gujarat refinery

     Indian Oil Corp (IOC) has signed an agreement with the Gujarat government to invest around Indian rupee (Rs) 240bn ($3.3bn) to set up new petrochemical projects at the IOC refinery in Vadadora, the state-owned producer said late on Monday.

    This includes a petrochemical and lube integration (LuPech) project, an acrylics/oxo-alcohol project and other infrastructure projects at the Gujarat refinery, it said in a statement.

    The LuPech project will produce import substitutes like lube oil base stock (LOBS) and polypropylene (PP).

    The acrylics/oxo-alcohol project at Dumad and Gujarat Refinery will produce butyl acrylate, a key ingredient for paints, coatings, adhesives and textile chemicals.

    The company did not outline a timeline as to when it expects to complete the new production facilities.

    "These projects will strengthen the Corporation's [IOC's] readiness for venturing into petrochemical projects like PVC [polyvinyl chloride], styrene, acrylonitrile [ACN], polymethyl methacrylate [PMMA] and ethylene oxide in future," IOC said.

    The Gujarat government and IOC also signed an agreement for infrastructure facilities at Dumad, which includes a tank truck loading facility for linear alkyl benzene (LAB), which is a feedstock for detergent applications.

    Other infrastructure projects include a new flare system at the Gujarat refinery and a hydrogen dispensing facility for Fuel Cell Electric Vehicles (FCEV).

    Overall production capacity at the Gujarat refinery is expected to grow to 18m tonnes/year with the addition of the new facilities, according to IOC chairman Shri SM Vaidya. This is up from the current 4.3m tonnes/year.

    "The total investment outlook for these projects in different execution stages is approximately Rs240bn," IOC added.