Haldia Petrochemicals Ltd (HPL) is considering a proposal to build a polycarbonate plant in Bengal, entailing an investment upward of $1 billion (₹8,700 crore).
The company plans to use spare land available at its existing manufacturing location at Haldia for the project, signalling further diversification in the chemical downstream business.
Polycarbonate is a key thermoplastic compound which finds use in many industries, especially automobile and packaging because of its durability under heat, impact and chemicals.
However, India meets the requirement of the material by import.
The basic raw material for polycarbonate is phenol and acetone, which will be available to HPL internally by the middle of 2026. The company, led by New York-based industrialist Purnendu Chatterjee, is in the midst of setting up a phenol plant at Haldia, in a major pivot towards the chemical downstream sector.
“India is a large consumption centre for chemicals, many of which are still being imported. One such item is polycarbonate, which is a downstream product for phenol, which you are aware HPL is putting up a capacity for. We are now exploring to build a unit for polycarbonate as well,” Navanit Narayan, whole-time director and CEO of HPL, told The Telegraph.
He did not hazard a guess on the investment required but industry estimates pegged it at about a $1 billion.
Apart from tying up funds for the project, which is likely to be taken up in a new company of The Chatterjee Group (TCG) or subsidiary of HPL, the management has to find a partner to get the technology for polycarbonate, which is closely held worldwide.
Two West Asian companies, ADNOC of Abu Dhabi through its subsidiary Covestro AG, and SABIC of Saudi Arabia are major producers of polycarbonate, apart from LG Chemicals of South Korea and a few companies from Japan, Taiwan among others.
Even as the petrochemical business is going through a downcycle and HPL is in losses, funding would depend on lenders’ assessment on viability and return from this import substitute product.
Phenol and acetone plant
The HPL management is now focusing their energy to execute the phenol plant in record time (under 36 months) while simultaneously working on the polycarbonate project.
The ₹5,000 crore phenol and acetone plant will be a major boost to Bengal’s economy and encourage proliferation of downstream units creating employment opportunities, just as HPL did a quarter of a century ago with the polymer business, the company had earlier hoped.
A major user of phenol will be the plywood industry, which has a base in the state with some of the largest producers based in Bengal.
HPL’s phenol plant will be the largest in India when it goes on stream by the middle of 2026 and reduce dependence on imports and cut logistics cost.
Phenol and acetone, which HPL will produce, are two key ingredients for a chemical compound called Bisphenol A (BPA) whose single largest application is to make polycarbonate.