New Delhi: Dr M Veerappa Moily dedicated to nation India’s first State-of-the-art Styrene Butadiene Rubber (SBR) Plant at Panipat, Harayana today in the presence of Minister of State for Petroleum & Natural Gas & Textiles Smt. Panabakka Lakshmi and other dignitaries.
Dr Moily described this is as a milestone achievement by Indian Oil Corporation, India’s largest company to visualise and implement such a project which will provide us the product E-SBR for which we were looking at other countries. This will result in substantial amount of savings of foreign exchange. He congratulated and thanked Marubeni and TSRC for coming to India and joining hands with IndianOil in setting up of this state-of-the-art SBR Plant in Panipat. SBR is suitable to produce various products like tyres, conveyor belts, hose, shoe soles, industrial goods, etc with superior processing properties like flexing resistance, tear and cracking resistance, improved abrasive resistance, etc.
The project is considered as a path breaking venture of national importance as there is no operating capacity in the country and the entire domestic demand is met through imports. IndianOil Corporation Limited, M/s.TSRC Corporation, Taiwan and M/s.Marubeni Corporation, Japan are Joint Venture Partners in this prestigious project implemented under the banner of Indian Synthetic Rubber Ltd (ISRL). It is based on Butadiene available from IndianOil’s Panipat Naphtha Cracker Complex.
Completed at an estimated cost of Rs.958 crore, the project is designed to produce 120 KTA of high quality styrene Butadiene Rubber which is currently imported for manufacture of automotive tyres and other applications. Commissioning of this prestigious project would significantly contribute to foreign exchange savings and also generation of employment opportunities in the state of Haryana.
Dr Moily also expressed satisfaction that IndianOil has made full use of the liberalisation and globalisation by expanding its wings and has emerged as the largest commercial organisation of the country. IndianOil has moved forward in its Hydrocarbon value chain by entering the Petrochemical Industry and in a few years only it has become a key player in Petrochemical Industry. ISRL is a part of the integrating petrochemical value chain and enhancing value of IndianOil’s Naptha Cracker at Panipat.
In the current scenario, Synthetic rubber consumption has increased due to the rapid industrialization of the Indian economy. The tyre sector is the largest end-use sector for synthetic rubber in India. Styrene Butadiene Rubber (SBR) which accounts for 40% of the total synthetic rubber demand is consumed mostly in the tyre sector. As the tyre production in India is increasing at a fast pace, the synthetic rubber consumption has also simultaneously increased. This manufacturing unit of SBR was planned in the backdrop of this increasing demand for synthetic rubber and to reduce India’s import dependency.
Hailing the growth of oil sector, he recalled that, India has been one of the first countries to set up Oil Refinery as early as 1901, however, further capacity addition only started after independence. For years, the sector faced many challenges like Capacity Addition, Augmenting Supply Sources, crude handling, logistics, process flexibility, Energy Efficiency, Value Addition and Product Quality Improvement. Industry in the past has added significant capacity through innovative low cost augmentation to mitigate the fund constraint. Till the end of 20th Century, country remained deficit in refining. With delicensing of Refining Sector, the country’s refining capacity has leapfrogged from a modest 62 MMTPA in 1998 to about 215 MMTPA at present, comprising of 22 refineries - 17 under Public Sector, 2 under Joint Sector and 3 under private sector. With grass-root refineries at Paradip (15 MMTPA) and NOCL (6.0) and expansion of some of the existing refineries, the total refining capacity is expected to touch around 271.2 MMTPA by the end of the ensuing 12th plan. Further, during 13th Plan, it is expected to go upto 332.9 MMTPA at the end of 13th Plan.
The Minister informed that India is already on the POL export map. The country exported 63.4 MMT during 2012-13 (prov.), registering a growth 5%.over 2011-12. India’s refining sector is also set for major capacity expansion and debottlenecking of its existing refineries. The product yields are also being realigned to meet ever increasing environmental norms for auto/industrial fuels and projected demand for various distillates and also to improve the GRMs. During 2012-13, Indian ports handled import-export cargos of about 79.3 MMT of product and 200.74 MMT of crude oil. These volumes are expected to increase considerably in future owing to improved yields from Indian refineries, new capacity additions & aligned with product demand patterns. The actual consumption of Petroleum Products during 2012-13 was 155 MMTPA. The domestic demand of Petroleum Products is projected to increase to about 187 MMTPA by 2016-17.
In upstream sector, Dr Moily underlined that his task is clearly cut out and since day one stating, “I have started working towards strengthening the E&P sector, removing bottlenecks, improving investor sentiment and bringing in necessary reforms so that we gradually move towards self reliance.”
He stressed that it is not an easy task and said, “people have disbelief and apprehensions about my vision of achieving import independence by the year 2030, but I have full faith that this can be achieved. I often say and I will repeat again, first we should mine our mind, petroleum mining will automatically follow. I refuse to believe that India does not have enough resources, we may not be endowed like middle east countries, but I am fairly confident that if we can nurture and nourish our E&P sector properly, we can very well take care of at least our own requirement.”
Smt P Lakshmi also hailed Indian Oil and other partners in completing this project of national importance.
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