Appoints SBI Capital for raising the sum
Mangalore Refineries and Petrochemical Ltd (MRPL) is planning to invest Rs 6,000-8,000 crore starting from early 2011. The company is looking at raising around Rs 5,000 crore to support its expansion plan, for setting up a polypropylene plant and installing a single buoy mooring (SBM) at the Mangalore port.
Speaking to Business Standard, UK Basu, managing director, said they’d appointed SBI Capital Markets for raising the Rs 5,000 crore. The company had a reserve of Rs 4,000 crore and was looking to raise the money by the start of 2011. “I am not ruling out raising the money from the markets, but it will depend upon the market condition and our cash position next year,” said Basu. It would fund the projects through a debt to equity ratio of 2:1.
The proposed projects include a Rs 1,804-crore polypropylene unit with a capacity of 440,000 tonnes, which Basu claimed would be the largest in south India and is expected to begin production by January 2012.
The SBM will involve an investment of around Rs 1,000 crore. Currently the port handles vessels with a capacity of 90,000 tonnes and is looking at bringing 300,000-tonne capacity vessels once the SBM becomes operational.
It is also planning to award additional projects worth Rs 3,960 crore by the end of this month.
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Among others, MRPL along with its parent company ONGC is setting up a Rs 5,700-crore facility to produce paraxylene and benzene with a capacity of 905,000 tonnes per annuma (tpa) and 337,000 tpa respectively.
It is also increasing its refining capacity to 15 million tpa from 10 million tpa now. The project is expected to be completed by October 2011.