The State-owned Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited is likely to set up a petrochemical complex with a Greenfield refinery either at Kakinada or Nakkapalli with a total investment of $8 billion.
As HPCL, which teamed up with Gas Authority of India Limited, has conveyed to the State government that it would need around 5,000 acres of land for establishing the project in the Visakhapatnam-Kakinada Petroleum, Chemicals and Petrochemicals Investment Region (PCPIR).
As such a huge extent of land is not available at Atchutapuram, where it was earlier allotted 1,500 acres for the complex, AP Industrial Infrastructure Corporation (APIIC) during a meeting with top officials of HPCL and GAIL in Hyderabad on Tuesday expressed its willingness to allot land either at Kakinada or Nakkapalli.
“They wanted to conduct separate studies on demand assessment and configuration of the petrochemical complex and get back to us after March, 2014,” APIIC Vice-Chairman and Managing Director Jayesh Ranjan told The Hindu on Wednesday.
He said HPCL and GAIL as anchor tenants would raise 60 per cent of the fund requirement on their own and scout for international partners to meet the remaining amount.
Refinery expansionHPCL is also contemplating expanding refining capacity at Visakh Refinery here from 8.3 to 15 million tonne with an investment of Rs.12,000 crore subject to clearance from the Ministry of Environment and Forests and other agencies.
Though HPCL originally wanted to set up the petrochemical complex at Atchutapuram, the land allotment was cancelled and the deposit money refunded last year as it failed to launch work on the project within the stipulated timeframe mainly due to global meltdown and failure to get strategic partners.
Andhra Pradesh was one among five States cleared by the Centre for developing PCPIR in June 2007.
The MoU was signed in 2009. There was not much progress in attracting investments in the region all these years.
The draft master plan was released sometime ago seeking public objections/suggestions for developing PCPIR in an area of 603 square km with an investment of Rs.3.43 lakh crore.
