Kvaerner to engineer Reliance project

Mumbai: Kvaerner Powergas India (KPGI) has been selected by Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) to provide design engineering services to build its 220,000-tonne per year polyester resin plant at Hazira using NG-3, the newest generation process from Dupont.

Reliance will expand its existing Relpet polyester packaging resin (PET) capacity of 80,000 tonnes per year to 300,000 tonnes per year with this plant. This will be the first plant in the world using this technology and will be uniquely designed to produce high molecular weight PET resin for the fast-growing bottle market.

KPGI has engineered some major projects for RIL at Hazira, including the two PTA plants, two polypropylene plants and a fine chemicals plant. Presently, KPGI is providing design engineering services for a 100,000-tonne per year polyester filament and fibre plant, which is under construction at Hazira.

The award of this contract to KPGI is a true reflection on the level of confidence Reliance places on KPGI to engineer mega projects based on sophisticated technology, says KPGI chairman and managing director Dr Rama Iyer.

This new world-scale plant will be located alongside the existing facility for Relpet at Hazira and will have a capacity of 220,000 tonnes per year. RIL is already the second-largest polyester yarn and fibre producer in the world, with a capacity of 925,000 tonnes per year. With this new plant for Relpet, RILs total capacity for polyester yarn, polyester fibre and polyester packaging resin will exceed 1.2 million tonnes per year.

The new range of Relpet products from the new technology will deliver to RIL customers the twin benefits of shorter moulding cycle times and lower energy consumption in the production of bottles. The final consumer, both in India and abroad, will also benefit, as the higher purity of the basic resin and lower levels of acetaldehyde will translate into a taste advantage.

RIL expects that initially a significant volume of Relpet made from the new plant will be exported to major overseas distribution and marketing networks. This will go a long way in building Indias image as an exporter of high-technology, value-added products.

End uses include packaging for brand name carbonated soft drinks and bottled drinking water, the demand for which is growing exponentially all over the world. The growth in the domestic market is even higher in these segments. Other than water and soft drinks, the demand for PET bottles in other packaging applications - like oil and liquor - is on the rise with many edible items increasingly switching over to PET. Among all packaging polymers, PET is the growing fast worldwide.

KPGI is presently engineering a non-wovens plant for Dupont that is coming up in Tennessee, US. The entire design engineering is done using the 3D PDMS Global software, and the engineering model is electronically transferred to the Dupont office and site in the US everyday to facilitate review and construction.

During the past 20 years, KPGI has engineered and built 12 polyester plants, both in India and abroad, including Australias largest polyester facility near Melbourne. Kvaerner, the international engineering and construction group, recently secured a contract to design and build a life-sciences complex for Reliance Life Sciences, a Reliance group company, near Mumbai. Kvaerner earned the contract with RIL based on its expertise and leadership in the biopharma arena, global capabilities with local India locations and longstanding positive relations with RIL.

The Reliance group is the largest private sector enterprise in India with revenues of Rs 62,000 crore (US $13.2 billion), assets of Rs 55,000 crore ($11.8 billion) and a market capitalisation of Rs 60,000 crore ($12.7 billion). The groups activities span textiles, synthetic fibres, fibre intermediates, petrochemicals, oil and gas production, financial services, petroleum refining, power, insurance, telecom and infocom initiatives.