IOC lets contract for Paradip refinery’s PX plant

Indian Oil Corp. Ltd. (IOC) has let a contract to subsidiaries of Maire Tecnimont SPA to provide engineering and construction services for a portion of the previously announced integrated paraxylene-purified terephthalic acid (PX-PTA) complex at the operator’s 15-million tonnes/year Paradip refinery in Odisha, on India’s northeastern coast (OGJ Online, Apr. 23, 2020).

As part of the contract, Tecnimont SPA and Tecnimont Private Ltd. of Mumbai will deliver engineering, procurement, construction, and commissioning (EPCC) of the complex’s new PX plant and related offsite installations, Maire Tecnimont said on Apr. 26.

Scope of delivery includes EPCC activities up to the performance guarantees test run, according to the service provider.

Once completed, the new plant will have a PX production capacity of 800,000 tpy, which will be used as feedstock for an adjacent 1.2-million tpy PTA plant to be built as part of complex (OGJ Online, Sept. 18, 2020).

The PX plant will receive its feedstock of reformate from the refinery’s existing UOP LLC-licensed continuous catalyst regeneration (CCR) platforming unit, according to official project documents from IOC and the government of India.

Maire Tecnimont—which valued the lump-sum EPCC contract at about $450 million—said mechanical completion of the PX plant is scheduled for 33 months from the award date, or sometime in late 2023 or early 2024.

Project overview

In its latest annual report to investors published in August 2020, IOC said the Paradip refinery’s 138.05-billion rupee PX-PTA project—which, at the time, was already under implementation and scheduled for commissioning by October 2022—comes as part of the company’s enhanced focus of further integration of its downstream refining and petrochemical operations to meet India’s rising demand for plastics and textiles.

The new PX-PTA complex specifically complements IOC’s other petrochemical-related projects at Paradip intended to support the government of Odisha’s plan to establish the Paradip Petroleum, Chemicals, & Petrochemical Investment Region (PCPIR) (OGJ Online, July 10, 2020).

In official project documents filed by IOC with the government of India, the operator said the PX plant will consist of an integrated, UOP-licensed aromatics block that includes the following proprietary units and technologies:

• A xylene fractionation unit.
• A Sulfolane unit.
• A benzene-toluene fractionation unit.
• A Tatoray unit.
• A Parex unit.
• An Isomar unit.

The complex’s PTA will consist of two sections, the first of which will use a feedstock of PX to produce crude terephthalic acid (CTA). A second section of the plant will then use the CTA to produce high-purity PTA, according to IOC.

While IOC has yet to officially confirm specific process technologies to be implemented at the PTA plant, the operator previously said it had selected proprietary technology originally developed and licensed by BP PLC.

On Jan. 1, 2021, however, INEOS AG confirmed it completed its purchase of much of BP’s petrochemicals business, including most of the latter’s technology and licenses offerings (OGJ Online, June 29, 2020). INEOS Aromatics is now responsible for licensing of INEOS-owned PX-PTA technologies, the company said in the early 2021 release.