IOC lets contract for Paradip refinery’s PTA plant

Indian Oil Corp. Ltd. (IOC) has let a contract to Technip Energies to deliver a suite of services for a portion of the previously announced integrated paraxylene-purified terephthalic acid (PX-PTA) complex to be built at the operator’s 15-million tonnes/year Paradip refinery in Odisha, on India’s northeastern coast (OGJ Online, Apr. 23, 2020).

Technip Energies will deliver engineering, procurement, construction, and commissioning (EPCC) for Paradip’s proposed 1.2-million PTA plant and associated installations, the service provider said on May 10.

Technip Energies valued the EPCC contract at between €250-500 million.

This latest contract follows IOC’s recent award to Maire Tecnimont SPA subsidiaries Tecnimont SPA and Tecnimont Private Ltd. of Mumbai to provide EPCC on the PX-PTA complex’s PX plant and related offsite installations (OGJ Online, Apr. 26, 2021).

Production from the 800,000-tpy PX plant—which will receive its feedstock of reformate from the refinery’s existing UOP LLC-licensed continuous catalyst regeneration (CCR) platforming unit—will be used as feedstock for the complex’s adjacent 1.2-million tpy PTA plant (OGJ Online, Sept. 18, 2020).

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 previously 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.

Currently slated for startup in late 2023 or early 2024, 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).

Technology overview

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 but now owned and licensed by INEOS AG’s INEOS Aromatics business as of Jan. 1, 2021 (OGJ Online, June 29, 2020).