BHUBANESWAR : Indian Oil Corporation Ltd (IOCL) will set up a naphtha cracker project with an investment of more than Rs 61,000 crore at Paradip soon.
IOCL chairman Arvinder Singh Sahney informed this to Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi during a meeting at the Lok Seva Bhawan here on Tuesday.
He discussed the progress of various ongoing and upcoming projects of the public sector oil company in Odisha. It was decided that IOCL and the Odisha government will sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) for the naphtha cracker project in January.
The project was a part of the company’s investment proposal of around Rs 1 lakh crore that had received in-principle approval of the state government in August last year. The investment proposals included expansion of its Paradip refinery - from 15 million tonne per annum (MTPA) to 25 MTPA besides the naphtha cracker unit.
The chief minister’s office said the naphtha unit is likely to be one of the largest projects in the sector in the country. The state government is an equity holder in the project and will earn dividend in addition to taxes, the CMO said in a statement.
It was also decided that the foundation for the upcoming yarn project at Bhadrak will be laid in January. The project will come up in Bhandaripokhari textile park at an investment of Rs 4,382 crore in collaboration with leading chemical company MCPI Pvt Ltd.
The board of the central public sector enterprise had approved an equity contribution of Rs 657.33 crore for the project recently. Once the project is completed, various large-scale garments manufacturing units will come up in the area.
This apart, a decision was taken for commissioning of the paraxylene purified terephthalic acid (PX-PTA) project in the petrochemical complex at Paradip by June, 2025. The unit set up at an investment of around Rs 12,000 crore will produce 8 lakh tonne of paraxylene (PX) and 12 lakh tonne of purified terephthalic acid (PTA) per year.
Industries minister Sampad Chandra Swain, chief secretary Manoj Ahuja, additional chief secretary Nikunja Bihari Dhal and Industries principal secretary Hemant Sharma were present. IOCL executive director Abhijit Chakraborty and chief general manager Dhananjaya Sahoo accompanied Sahney.