Indian Petrochemicals Corporation Ltd (IPCL), in which the government is going for a second round of disinvestment, has planned an outlay of Rs 350 crore over the next three years to expand capacities at its three plants, a senior company executive said here today. |
JB Kamat, the Reliance group company's senior executive vice-president (marketing), told reporters here at a press conference that IPCL expected demand for polymers to touch the 10 million tonne mark by 2010, from 3.92 million tonne now. |
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He said there was an urgent need to add capacities to bridge the demand-supply gap in the coming years. The money will be spent in the units at Vadodara, Gandhar and Nagothane, he added. |
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The capacity at the Vadodara plant's cracker unit will be enhanced by 40,000 tonne per annum to 170,000 tonne a year. Its benzene capacity is being increased by 20,000 tonne, ACN capacity by 8,000 tonne, polypropylene capacity by 15,000 tonne and PBR capacity by 15,000 tonne. |
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The Gandhar units PVC capacity being enhanced by 135,000 tonne, MEG capacity by 39,000 tonne and the EDC capacity by 25,000 tonne. The Nagothane unit's polypropylene capacity will be enhanced by 15,000 tonne a year. |
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Kamat said that the IPCL units operated at an average 106 per cent capacity in 2002-03. During this financial year, utilisation was likely to increase to 120 per cent. |
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The offer size of the issue has been enhanced to 7.18 crore shares, after Reliance Petroinvestments Ltd declined the government's offer to purchase additional five per cent equity in the company. That would have taken its shareholding in IPCL to 51 per cent. |
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Reliance was offered a higher of Rs 195 per share or final offer price, established through the book-building route, to increase its stake in IPCL by an additional five per cent. But Reliance declined the offer saying it wanted a larger float. |
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A fire broke out at the Indian Petrochemicals Corporation's (IPCL) units at Nagothane in Maharashtra on Monday night. The petrochemical complex is expected to be shut down for at least 10 days for necessary repairs. |
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"On February 23rd night, there was minor fire in the outside battery limit area at the IPCL Nagothane complex. The fire was brought under control within 30 minutes. There is no loss of life. There were minor injuries to three fire fighting crew members, who are being treated at IPCL medical centre. All plants were safely shutdown and will be restarted after technical audit and necessary repairs in about 7-10 days," an IPCL media release said. |
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Industry sources claim that the IPCL already undertook a total maintenance shutdown of the gas cracker at Nagothane petrochemical complex late last month. |
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"The entire complex was already shutdown for over a month for maintenance and was expected to restart on March 5. However, the blasts on Monday night is likely to delay the re-commissioning of the petrochemical units at the complex", they add. |
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IPCL has also planned to undertake a planned shutdown for its gas cracker at Gandhar in Gujarat. The government has offered sale of its 23.945 per cent of the paid-up equity in IPCL. |
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The offer, which opened on February 20, was later enhanced to the extent of five percent to 71,850,056 equity shares since Reliance Petroinvestment declined the government's offer to purchase an additional 5 per cent equity in IPCL. |
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IPCL offer closes on February 27, 2004. |
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