Haldia Petrochemicals Ltd (HPL) was now looking at developing downstream units to make agricultural films, mulches as well as roto-moulded plastic products, to achieve 15 per cent growth in polymer sales in the eastern region in this fiscal.
Rotomoulded products included hollow plastic products, most typically tanks and containers. HPL had spawned 627 downstream units in the state so far, employing 68,000 people directly.
Most of these units manufactured injection mouldings, laminates, and retail shopping bags, claimed Dipak Chatterjee, senior general manager for business development of HPL.
The net investments in these units that consumed polymer from HPL was around Rs740 crore. "We will focus on rotomoulding and agricultural plastic films units as a long-term growth target. One unit in container manufacturing has already come up", Chatterjee said.
Use of plastic mulches in Maharashtra had increased farm yield by roughly 40 per cent besides improving quality of the yield as well, Chatterjee said at a seminar organised by the Indian Chemical Council. The use of plastic mulches and films was not common in the East, and so HPL was currently looking at developing its use here, he added.
West Bengal accounted for nearly 10 per cent of the Indian polymer market. Recently, there had been growth in sales of woven sacks, which accounted for more than 38 per cent of the plastics processing in this region.
In FY08, demand for such bags for potato packaging was around 6 crore bags. The recent retail boom has accentuated the demand for packaging vegetables, Chatterjee added.
Demand for polyolefins from organised retail clocked 12 per cent compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) in the country but sales in eastern India rose 25 per cent CAGR. Around 100 downstream units of HPL were into plastics bag manufacturing for retail use.
Potential demand for polyolefins in the region was slated to rise to 106 kilo-tons (KT) in 2011-12 from 30KT in 2007-08. The eastern region contributed to nearly 25-30 per cent of HPL's turnover. It posted a revenue of Rs8600 crore in FY08.
