GAIL to raise UP petrochem plant capacity to 8 lakh tonnes

Mumbai: State-run gas utility GAIL India plans to nearly double capacity at its petrochemicals plant in Pata, in Uttar Pradesh, to 800,000 tonnes in the next few years as part of plans to ramp up its chemicals business.

GAIL India, the country's largest transporter and marketer of natural gas, also plans to diversify from the gas business to petrochemicals.

''It is proposed to augment the Pata capacity to 500,000 tonne per annum (and) gradually move up to 800,000 tonnes per annum," GAIL chairman and managing director U D Choubey told shareholders at the company's annual general meeting.

Choubey, however, did not disclose the investments that would be made in the expansion or the time frame for the project.

GAIL's profits from petrochemicals and LPG business in the first quarter of the current financial year exceeded that from the natural gas business for the first time.

Petrochemicals and LPG contributed 56 per cent of the company's total net profit of Rs897 crore during the quarter ended June 2008.

GAIL is also setting up a 220,000 tonne per annum petrochemical plant in Assam. It also signed an agreement with Hindustan Petroleum Corporation, Oil India Ltd, Mittal Investments and France's Total to set up another petrochemical complex and crude oil refinery at Visakhapatnam.

The company is also planning to set up a one million tonne per annum petrochemical plant overseas in partnership with Reliance Industries.