A top official said that in the next 12 months, Southern Petrochemicals Industries Corporation Limited (SPIC) will completely switch from NAPTA to use natural gas as a feedstock.
“We will be one of the last few companies to move completely towards natural gas,” Ashwin Muthiah, president of SPIC and AM International, told Morning Tidings.
“Last mile connectivity with our Thulukudi plant was initiated to ensure supply of natural gas through the Ramanathapuram-Thoothukudi gas pipeline, the inauguration of the IOC on Saturday,” he said.
According to him, SPIC will be one of the anchor customers to benefit from this pipeline. In the first phase, natural gas will be made available to SPIC from ONGC gas wells at Ramanathapuram. In the second phase, the gas will be sourced from the IOC LNG terminal at Ennore, Chennai.
“There are three main advantages of switching to natural gas. Due to the availability of cheaper gas, the need for working capital will be reduced and maintenance costs will also come down as the plant will have to be closed for only 10-15 days for maintenance as against the normal 30-35 days. Also, there is no reason for the shutdown and this will increase the production capacity from 6.5 lakh MT to 7.5 lakh MT, ”said SP Manish Nagpal, Chief Executive Officer of SPIC.
While stating that they build a healthy bottom line for SPIC, Mr. Manish factors in moving it from high cost to low cost fuel, elimination of storage material, subsidy outflow from the government and availability of gas from the national grid. Attributed to.
SPIC had spent around ₹ 500 crores for feedstock conversion and dedicated pipeline among others.
.
Leave a Reply