Page 28 - Plastics News September 2017

RIL Ethane Import Project

The Opportunity – Sourcing Ethane from US execution of this project at this scale and magnitude is a
fi rst in the world. This project underlines RIL’s ability to
Technological advances with regard to horizontal drilling
build world-scale capacities and infrastructure.
and fracking resulted in booming the Shale Gas production
in the USA. This also led to increase in production of NGLs In July 2014, RIL signed an agreement with Enterprise and
(Natural Gas Liquids) associated with Natural Gas such as booked 80 kbpd out of 240 kbpd of terminal capacity at
Ethane which is one of the key feedstock for petrochemical Morgans Point.
industry.
Reliance ordered 6 new VLECs (Very Large Ethane Carriers)
Limited cracker demand, lack of Export facilities resulted with Samsung Heavy Industries, Korea; capable of
in ethane becoming surplus in the US. For last few years, transporting cryogenic ethane at -890C and atmospheric
Ethane is getting rejected into Natural gas streams. pressure; in 46-47 KT parcel. This created history in
creating a new class of gas carriers which are one of its
This presented an opportunity for use of ethane as a
kind and are the largest vessels ever built for waterborne
low cost feed alternative for those who could bet on
transportation of Ethane. The vessels adopt GTT Mark
integrating with their own operations outside of the US.
III as a containment system which is unique for Ethane
RIL thus embarked on using this opportunity and became transportation, and are designed to cater to latest safety
the 1st company globally to conceptualize the idea of and environment regulations.
large scale waterborne imports of ethane from the US as
RIL built cryogenic ethane unloading facilities at Dahej,
feedstock for its cracker portfolio.
designed to offl oad the entire VLEC cargo within 24 hours.
The Challenge – Supply Chain Integration At Dahej Cracker site, RIL has built the world’s largest

To achieve this task of setting up the supply chain from US cryogenic ethane storage tank, equivalent to the size of
to India, RIL had to carry out seamless integration of fi ve a cricket stadium. The tank was built in the record time
major sub projects to bring 1.6 mmtpa of Ethane to India. of 27 months. The tank is unique in design and is also
capable of storing LNG at -1620C.
RIL had to secure access to refrigeration capacity in the US
to convert locally available ethane into cryogenic ethane RIL is also building Asia’s fi rst dedicated ethane cross
and load it on Ships for transporting it to India. country pipeline of about 480 Km, which runs through the
states of Gujarat and Maharashtra, for transportation of
RIL had to build specially designed ships to carry this
liquid ethane under pressurised condition from Dahej to
cryogenic ethane from US to India.
the cracker sites at Hazira and Nagothane. This 900 class
RIL had to build requisite unloading and storage facilities pipeline is designed and built to the highest international
in India to receive ethane in its cryogenic form from the safety norms, fully remote operable from Control room
ships. located at Dahej and Navi Mumbai. This pipeline set a
new record in Indian Pipeline Industry for the longest
Further, RIL had to build pipeline to transport ethane to
horizontally drilled crossing of over 2.6 KM across Narmada
RIL cracker sites in Gujarat and Maharashtra.
River in Gujarat, using ‘Meet in the middle intersect
And fi nally to use ethane as feedstock, RIL had to modify technique’, adopted in India for the 1st time.
its existing crackers.
Minor modifications were carried out at Dahej and
Implementation of Ethane Value Chain in record time Nagothane gas crackers to handle ethane. In Hazira,

RIL set about implementing this complex supply chain it was determined up to 33% of the ethylene can be
project in its usual clinical precision style and converted cost-effectively produced based on Ethane feed. The 3
the dream into a reality in a span of about 2.5 years. The cracker sites have been revamped to crack ethane and

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