05 Oct - Fire at Indian ONGC gas plant disrupted feedstock supply to GAIL PE units
Source: MRCplast
GAIL India Ltd has reportedly taken its polyethylene (PE) unit in Pata, Uttar Pradesh off-stream on 25 September 2020 following a ruptured pipeline at ONGC’s gas processing plant that disrupts feedstock supply to GAIL, according to CommoPlast with reference to market sources.
The unit has an annual capacity of 400,000 tons/year, which might remain shut for several days.
In the meantime, GAIL operates two other PE lines: a 210,000 tons/year high density polyethylene (HDPE)/linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE) swing line and a standalone 100,000 tons/year HDPE line. There are no confirmed reports on the operation status of these units at the time of this report.
GAIL has slashed gas supplies by about 40% to its customers, mainly power and fertilizer companies following the incident.
As MRC reported earlier, on 24 September 2020, a fire broke out at the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) gas processing plant in Hazira, India with no casualty or injury reported. ONGC’s own petrochemical plant, namely ONGC Petro Additions (OPaL), is not affected by the incident as it is situated in a different location.
OPaL operates the petrochemical complex in Gujarat, India that houses a naphtha cracker with an annual output of 1.1 million tons/year of ethylene and 400,000 tons/year of propylene. Downstream units including a 340,000 tons/year PP line, a 360,000 tons/year HDPE/LLDPE swing line, and a 340,000 tons/year HDPE line.
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's overall PE production totalled 1,712,400 tonnes in the first seven months of 2020, up by 58% year on year. Linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE) accounted for the greatest increase in the output. At the same time, overall PP production in Russia increased in January-July 2020 by 24% year on year to 1,063,700 tonne. ZapSibNeftekhim accounted for the main increase in the output.
