Numaligarh Refinery eyes opportunities in international market to sell wax

The company's Rs 676-cr wax plant was commissioned by Prime Minister in February this year and is the largest in India

Assam-based Numaligarh Refinery Limited (NRL), a subsidiary of Bharat Petroleum, is eyeing opportunities in the international market to sell wax from its recently commissioned wax producing plant. Today, it has exported a consignment of 60 metric tonne (MT) of wax to ROK Industries in Kenya and is set to export to Bangladesh and Germany in coming days. 

The NRL’s wax plant, which was commissioned by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in February this year, has a capacity to produce 50,000 metric tonnes of wax annually. NRL is presently the largest manufacturer and marketer of wax in the country with a domestic market share of more than 52%.

“We could capture the domestic market well in a very short time. We are now looking at opportunities in the international market as well. The demand in international market is also high. Today we have exported to Kenya and trying to seize the opportunities in Bangladesh and Germany as well,” said a company spokesperson to Business Standard. NRL had also exported wax to Nepal in recent days. The company has an an e-auctioning system to sell wax. 

Till now, a major part of the country’s annual demand for paraffin wax along with the entire demand for microcrystalline wax was being met through imports. NRL’s wax plant could minimise the supply deficit in the domestic market substantially, thus reducing imports.

Leveraging on the inherent properties of wax rich crude oil from the oil fields of Assam, the NRL’s wax plant had been designed to produce superior quality paraffin and microcrystalline wax. 

As part of its corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives, NRL had also trained 100 people from Assam to set up wax-based micro level ancillary industries in the region. 

Besides NRL, two other plants currently producing wax in India are Indian Oil Corporation’s Digboi refinery in Assam and Chennai Petroleum Corporation Limited. 

The Rs 676 crore wax plant of NRL produces wax through indigenous technology developed by Indian Institute of Petroleum (IIP) Dehradun, Engineers India Limited (EIL) and NRL.

The utility of paraffin wax lies in making candles, tarpaulin sheets, food grade wrappers and in PVC pipe manufacturing industries while microcrystalline wax finds widespread application in the manufacture of tyres, rubber products, paints and polishes, pharmaceuticals  and cosmetics.

Today, the first consignment of Type-II paraffin wax to Kenya was flagged off by S R Medhi, director (technical) of NRL, from company’s marketing terminal at Numaligarh in Golaghat district of Assam.