Page 32 - Plastics News June - 2020

Indian Oil raises refinery operations to 60%, ONGC and NTPC sign MOU to set up Joint
plans to scale up further Venture for Renewable Energy Business

ndian Oil Corporation (Indian Oil) has re-started il and Natural Gas Corporation Limited (ONGC)
Oand NTPC ltd are planning to set up a Joint
Iseveral process units at its refineries that were down
Venture Company for Renewable Energy business. The
due to the lockdown. With throughputs gradually
two Maharatnas entered into a Memorandum of
picking up pace, the refineries are currently operating
Understanding (MoU) on 21 May 2020 in Delhi to
at about 60% of their design capacities with plans to
formalize this arrangement. The MoU will enable both
scale up to 80% of the design levels. Similarly, Indian Oil companies to achieve their targets in Renewable
has resumed manufacture of petrochemical E n e r g y
intermediates like HDPE (high-density polyethylene) business.
and Polypropylene at its Panipat complex. With the T h e M O U
demand for these grades likely to increase even further was signed
b y O N G C
D i r e c t o r
(Finance)
a n d I n -
c h a r g e
B u s i n e s s
Developme
n t a n d
Joint Ventures Mr. Subhash Kumar and Director
(Commercial) NTPC, Mr. A K Gupta. ONGC CMD Mr.
Shashi Shanker and NTPC CMD Mr. Gurdeep Singh (on
Virtual conferencing) along with the Directors of two
public enterprises witnessed the occasion. As per the
MoU, NTPC and ONGC will explore and set up
Renewable Power assets including offshore wind, in
in the coming days, the Naphtha Cracker as well as the
India and overseas, and explore opportunities in the
MEG (Mono-ethylene-glycol) plant at Panipat are back
fields of sustainability, storage, E-mobility and ESG
in operation. The Polypropylene plant at Paradip too (Environmental, Social and Governance) compliant
will resume operations and other polymer units are projects. ONGC has a renewable portfolio of 176 MW
also being readied to go online this month itself. The comprising of 153 MW wind power and 23 MW of solar.
revival of the Panipat Naphtha cracker will also Through this collaboration with NTPC, ONGC envisages
facilitate further increase in refinery crude oil s i g n i fi c a n t
throughputs. Even though the nationwide lockdown growth in its
had severely impacted the entire value chain of presence in
petroleum products, Indian Oil has kept all its refinery t h e
units on 'hot' standby to be ready for scale-up to higher Re n e w a b l e
Power sector
throughputs once the product demand picks up. The
as outlined in
Corporation's refineries were operating full throttle i t s E n e r g y
before the COVID lockdown but had to curtail
Strategy 2040
throughputs and bring operations down to nearly 45% d o c u m e n t .
of design capacities by the first week of April. Indian S i m i l a r l y,
Oil's Naphtha Cracker at Panipat was primed to operate NTPC, with a
well over its design capacity in March. With the gradual 9 2 0 M W o f
lifting in lockdown restrictions, several downstream installed Renewable power capacity in its portfolio
industries have resumed operations and thus with about 2300 MW of Renewable Energy projects
dispatches of polymer grades such as BOPP, GPBM, PP under construction and aspiring to reach 32 GW by
2032, will benefit from this tie up by expanding its
raffia and PP yarn used in these industries have begun
from Panipat. footprint in offshore wind and overseas Renewable
energy projects as well.

June 2020 32 Plastics News