BPCL to invest ₹40,000 crore in new petrochemicals plant

To de-risk Mumbai refinery by shifting LPG, bitumen storage units to Rasayani

09/08/2018 MUMBAI: (File) The View of BPCL Refinery at Mahul in Mumbai. Photo: Paul Noronha

State-owned Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL) is planning to set up a ₹40,000-crore petrochemicals plant at Rasayani in Raigad District of Maharashtra to manufacture polypropylene (PP) and polyethylene.

The company also plans to shift its LPG bottling plant, storage facilities and bitumen plant to Rasayani, 60 km away from its Mumbai plant.

BPCL refineries in Mumbai and Kochi reported couple of fire incidents in the past. The relocation would de-risk the refinery and reduce the movement of LPG tankers around the Mumbai city area by 43%.

R. Ramachandran,Director Refineries, BPCL, told

The Hindu that the Rasayani plant was at pre-investment stage. “We are doing feasibility study. The main project is to have a PP plant and ethylene cracker. We plan to have 700 acres of land of which 250 acres have been acquired from Hindustan Organics. In the first stage, we plan to set up 450 ktpa propylene unit. In the second stage, we are looking for 1.5 mtpa for polyethylene,” he said.

Phased investment

BPCL CMD D. Rajkumar said, “We plan to invest up to ₹40,000 crore in a phased manner. The matter will be taken up by the board. We have gone to board and taken approval for petchem strategy. Our petchem strategy is frozen. All OMCs are moving towards petchem.”

BPCL is also planing to build a petrochemical plant at its Bina refinery.