India : Reliance To Increase Polymer Production

Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) plans to exploit opportunities for expansions in volumes for polymer production as deficit in polymer production will begin to emerge by 2004-05. As per statistics provided by the company during the presentation of the annual financial results, the deficit in polymer production by the year 2004-05 should be around 44,000 tonne.

The deficit is expected to increase further if new production facilities are not commissioned. RIL's further debottlenecking and capacity expansion plans will also depend on the global petrochemical industry scenario. "Reliance will benefit significantly from any improvement in global petrochemicals industry fundamentals," said RIL petrochemical business president Kamal Nanavati.

As per RIL's future growth strategy in the petrochemicals business, the emphasis will be on speciality grades providing healthier margins. Currently, RIL is setting up a new world scale PET plant with a capacity of 2.2 lakh tonne based on revolutionary technology from DuPont, while an additional capacity of 40,000 tonne per annum is also being commissioned.

RIL is also betting on the strong and consistently high double-digit growth rate being displayed in polymer consumption growth in India. Statistics show that India has continued to witness a strong growth with consumption trebling every decade.

The consumption of polymers in India in 1970-71 was just about a lakh tonne, while the consumption in 1980-81 was 2.9 lakh tonne. The consumption increased to 8.9 lakh tonne in 1990-91 to 3.2 million in 2000-01.

RIL is betting on this immense growth potential in the Indian petrochemical market. India is amongst the largest and fastest growing petrochemicals markets in the world. Statistics supporting the claim put the per capita polyester consumption in India at 1.4 kg as compared to 6.6 kg for China,etc.