Reliance Commissions World's Largest Refinery Off-Gas Cracker at Jamnagar, Gujarat

Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) has successfully commissioned its refinery off-gas cracker (ROGC) complex of 1.5 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) capacity along with downstream plants and utilities, the company announced here.

It said the ROGC complex is a core component of RIL's most innovative and world-scale J3 project at its integrated Refinery-Petrochemicals complex at Jamnagar.

"The world's first ROGC and downstream plants marks a paradigm shift in the profitability and sustainability of RIL's petrochemicals business. The ROGC complex is built on our core philosophy of deep feedstock integration to establish industry leading cost and efficiency benchmarks," said Mukesh D. Ambani, Chairman and Managing Director, Reliance Industries Limited, in a company statement.

"This world scale petrochemicals expansion, once again showcases RIL's unique competitive advantage in efficient execution of complex projects and flawless commissioning capabilities, adding yet another jewel to its crown," he added.

This is one of the largest capital expenditure programme globally in the sector in recent times, the statement said.

"It epitomises RIL's core strategy of continuously pursuing opportunities for cost optimisation and efficiency enhancement through vertical integration across the value chain."

The ROGC complex has a unique configuration as it uses off-gases from RIL's two refineries at Jamnagar as feedstock. This innovative approach of integration with refineries provides a sustainable cost advantage, making ROGC competitive with respect to the crackers in Middle-East and North America which have feedstock cost advantage, the company said.

ROGC is the latest addition to RIL's existing cracker portfolio, consisting of cracker facilities at Nagothane in Maharashtra and Hazira, Dahej and Vadodara in Gujarat.

There are nearly 270 ethylene plants globally with a combined capacity of over 170 MTPA. RIL's combined ethylene capacity is now close to 4 MTPA at five of its manufacturing sites. With ROGC and imported ethane, RIL has one of the most competitive and flexible cracker portfolio, it said.

Ethylene from ROGC is used in downstream plants to produce mono-ethylene glycol (MEG) and polyethylene (LLDPE and LDPE). Similarly, propylene from ROGC has enhanced output of the existing polypropylene (PP) plants at Jamnagar complex to produce high-value co-polymers.

"The commissioning of MEG plant marks completion of all-round expansion of the polyester value chain post successful commissioning of para-xylene (PX), purified terephthalic Acid (PTA), polyester filament and poly ethylene terephthalate (PET) plants over last three years," the company statement said.