BJP-ruled Odisha has managed to draw a bounty of investment proposals from public sector oil companies, taking advantage of the coastline on the Bay of Bengal and industry friendly policies.
The largest of them came from Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), which has signed a memorandum of understanding with Odisha to set up a petrochemical complex in the port town of Paradip for ₹61,077 crore.
The project will be the largest in a single site by IOC, India’s biggest oil firm, and build on the 15-million tonne refinery it already operates there.
IOC chairman A.S. Sahney said the naphtha cracker, which would make raw material used to manufacture plastics, technical textiles and other such chemicals, will be commissioned by 2029.
The upcoming complex will house a dual-feed cracker and associated downstream units for the production of a wide range of petrochemicals including phenol, polypropylene, isopropyl alcohol, high-density polyethylene, linear low-density polyethylene and polyvinyl chloride.
These products will serve as raw materials for speciality chemical sectors such as pharmaceuticals, agrochemicals, coatings and adhesives, significantly reducing import dependency.
Besides IOC, Petronet LNG, India’s biggest liquefied natural gas importer, signed a pact to invest ₹6,500 crore to set up an LNG import terminal at Gopalpur port in Odisha. This will be the company’s first LNG terminal on the east coast.
Indian Strategic Petroleum Reserves Ltd, the special purpose vehicle created by the Centre for setting up strategic oil reserves, will set up a 4 mt underground storage facility at Chandikhol in Odisha at an investment of ₹8,743 crore. The reserve holds crude underground allowing the country to stock which can be use.