BPCL Kochi Refinery has launched food grade quality hexane (FCQ Hexane), a development that has been described as a boon to the food processing industry in south India.
This is the first time that the refinery is producing a food grade product.
FGQ Hexane is a light distillate produced from special cut naphtha where the hexane rich stream is extracted and purified to meet the required specification.
The product is mainly used in the solvent extraction units for spices and vegetable oils. This is also used by the drugs and pharmaceuticals industry and also as solvent in other speciality applications. Much of FGQ Hexane used in the country is imported and the Kochi refinery achievement would help achieve the goal of self-sufficiency, said a press release from BPCL here on Thursday.
FGQ Hexane is being produced in the isomerization unit of Kochi Refinery which came up as part of the Integrated Refinery Expansion Project (IREP).
Kochi Refinery now has the capacity to produce 5,000 tonnes per year. In BPCL Kochi Refinery product portfolio, FGQ Hexane is the 21st in line.
The new product was launched at a function at the refinery in which D. Rajkumar, chairman and managing director, BPCL, flagged off the first truck carrying FGQ Hexane to the first customer, AVT, in the presence of R. Ramachandran, director (Refineries) and BPCL executive directors N. Vijayagopal (Corporate Accounts), Prasad K. Panicker, (Kochi Refinery), Sharat Sharma (Industrial and Commercial) P.S. Ramachandran (Projects) and Jayesh Shah (Human Resources).
‘A landmark’
“This is a landmark in the history of Kochi Refinery. This will help the food processing industry and the farming community,” said Mr. Panicker. He said Kochi refinery had always tried to promote industries based on farming sector in south India and in the late 1990s, the refinery developed natural rubber modified bitumen (NRMB) through its research and development centre and had provided an alternative scope for rubber.
Thereafter, NRMB has been a prime product of the refinery which helped in laying better roads.
