GAIL in novel-tech talks for Assam cracker

GAIL is negotiating a breakthrough technology for the Rs 6,000 crore Assam Gas Cracker Project (AGCP) that would give the gas to petrochemical major an annual savings of Rs 500 crore.

The company is planning to utilise lean gas (methane), which is generally used for power production and not petrochemicals, to produce propylene, thereby substituting costlier feedstock like naphtha.

GAIL earlier planned about 280,000 tonne per annum (TPA) petrochemical plant in Assam based on the gas to be supplied by Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) and Oil India Ltd (OIL).

With this methane to propylene (MTP) technology, the company is hoping to add another 220,000 TPA of polymer to take the installed capacity to 0.5 million TPA.

MTP technology is being used by number of Chinese companies and also National Petrochemical Company (NPC) of Iran. GAIL is in dialogue with an European consultant for the technology which company sources said is inexpensive.

"This technology can revolutionise the petrochemical industry in India and has enormous potential and is most appropriate for the AGCP," Proshanto Banerjee, chairman and managing director, GAIL India Ltd, told Business Standard.

Experts pointed out the expanded capacity would give AGCP much needed economy of scale in operations. The savings on account of double use of natural gas instead of expensive naphtha would make it financially more attractive.

Operationally, GAIL will be extracting the rich content from the natural gas supplied by OIL leaving out the lean gas which has very high methane content only suitable for power generation.