Page 6 - Plastics News May 2020

IndianOil plans to operate refineries at 80 per Gas leak at Vizag LG Polymers factory
cent capacity by May end

ndianOil Corporation (IOC), the country's largest fuel t least 10 people were killed and nearly 350
Iretailer, has said that it intends to operate its oil Ahospitalised after gas leaked from a chemical
refineries at 80 per cent capacity by end of May in factory on the outskirts of Visakhapatnam in Andhra
anticipation of increased demand during the month.
Pradesh in the wee hours of Thursday, May7, while it
With the demand for petroleum products gradually
picking up, IOC has re-started several process units at was being prepared for reopening after the easing of
its refineries that were down due to the lockdown. the lockdown. Also at least 2,000 people in five
"With throughputs gradually picking up pace, the villages located in a 5-km radius around the factory
refineries are currently operating at about 60 per cent owned by the multinational LG Chem were affected,
of their design capacities with plans to scale up to 80
with several falling unconscious with breathing
per cent % of the design levels by the end of the
difficulties according to reports. The government also
month,” it said. The refineries were operating at full
capacity before the lockdown but had to curtail directed LG Polymers to take back styrene monomer
throughput and bring operations down to nearly 45 per and other raw materials the company stocked at the
cent of capacity by the first week of April in response to Visakhapatnam port and the factory. Stating that the
a steep decline in demand. IOC has also resumed
management was told to come to Visakhapatnam with
manufacturing of petrochemical intermediates in its team of experts, pressure is being mounted on the
anticipation of increased demand. “IndianOil has
resumed manufacture of petrochemical intermediates company as the government is taking the issue
like HDPE (high-density polyethylene) and seriously. Apart from the four tanks at the factory, we
Polypropylene at its Panipat complex. With the learnt that the company has two tanks of material at
demand for these grades likely to increase even further the Vizag port, and told them to ship all the material
in the coming days, the Naphtha Cracker as well as the back to where it was brought from. As the inquiry into
MEG (Mono-ethylene-glycol) plant at Panipat are back
the gas leak is ongoing and there are no chances of
in operation,” IOC said. The company added that the
Polypropylene plant at Paradip is expected to resume operating the factory, we cannot let them keep the
operations in a couple of days and other polymer units material, as we have no trust in them following the
are also being readied to go online this month itself. incident,” the source said. Stating that the
“With the gradual lifting in lockdown restrictions, temperature of the five remaining tankers is being
several downstream industries in the plastics
maintained in the safety zone (20 to 25 degree
packaging, medical supplies and food packaging
sectors have resumed operations from late April '20. Celsius), sources said the temperature of the tank
from where the gas leaked was brought down to 80
degree Celsius by Saturday evening. Though the
temperature should be 20 degree Celsius as per the
norms, anything below 100 degree Celsius is
considered safe.

MAY 2020 6 Plastics News