Guwahati, Jan. 19: Numaligarh Refinery Limited (NRL) has for the first time exported paraffin wax to China.

India usually imports a huge quantity of wax from China and the NRL plant is expected to ensure reduction in import dependency for wax by nearly 50 per cent.

The consignment of 80 metric tonnes of paraffin wax was flagged off from Numaligarh Refinery yesterday by general manager (maintenance) Samiran Chakraborty. With this, the total export from the NRL's wax plant stands at 1,900MT. The wax will be transported to Calcutta port from where it will be shipped to China. "We are not aware of any wax export to China from anywhere else in the country," a senior NRL official told The Telegraph.

The refinery also exported 20MT of paraffin wax to Thailand yesterday. It has already exported wax to five countries and is pursuing opportunities to export to other countries.

The refinery said in a statement that the export to China assumes special significance since the major part of the country's wax requirement is met through imports from China. This is testimony to the high quality of NRL wax, which has in less than two years captured markets in India and abroad, it said.

"We have captured a major chunk of the wax market since 2015 when the plant was commissioned," the official said.

Paraffin wax is produced only in refineries which have wax production units. It is used in making candles, tarpaulin sheets, food wrappers and in PVC pipe manufacturing while microcrystalline wax finds widespread application in manufacture of tyres, rubber products, paints and polishes, pharmaceuticals and cosmetics.

The Northeast Hydrocarbon Vision 2030 says against the total estimated demand of 1,30,000MT per annum, domestic production, excluding NRL's wax plant, is in the range of 52,000MT per annum (32,000MT from Digboi Refinery and 20,000MT from CPCL Refinery), while the remaining demand is met through imports. The entire domestic demand of 12,000MT per annum for microcrystalline wax is imported.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi dedicated the NRL wax plant to the country on February 5 last year at a function in Dibrugarh. The 50,000MT-capacity plant was commissioned in March 2015 at Rs 676 crore and is the country's largest wax-producing unit with indigenous technology developed by the Indian Institute of Petroleum, Dehradun, Engineers India Limited and NRL.